Taking the Bastile

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Thomas Wallace, Esq.

" The distance was too great to enable him to see clearly "

Vol. Nino

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THE WORKS OF

ALEXANDRE DUMAS

IN THIRTY VOLUMES

TAKING
THE BASTILE

ILLUSTRATED WITH A FRONTISPIECE
IN PHOTOGRAVURE

NEW YORK
P. F. COLLIER cSc SON

1^1

TAKING THE BASTILE.

CHAPTER I.

Ox the borders of Picarcly and the province of Soissons,
and on that part of the national territory which, under the
name of the Isle of France, formed a portion of the ancient
patrimony of our kings, and in the center of an immense
crescent formed by a forest of fifty thousand acres which
stretches its horns to the north and south, rises, almost
buried amid the shades of a vast park planted by Francis
I. and Henry II., the small city of Villers-Cotterets. This
placo is celebrated from having given birth to Charles
Albert Demoustier, Avho, at the period when our present
history commences, was there writing his Letters to Emilie,
on Mythology, to the unbounded satisfaction of tlie pretty
women of those days, who eagerly snatched his publications
from one another as soon as printed.

Let us add, to complete the poetical reputation of this
little city, whose detractors, notwithstanding its royal
chateau and its two thousand four hundred inhabitants,
obstinately persist in calling it a mere village — let us add,
we say, to complete its poetical reputation, that it is
situated at two leagues' distance from Laferte-Milan, where
Eacine was born, and eight leagues from Chateau-Thierry,
the birthplace of La Fontaine. Let us also state the
mother of the author of " Britaunicus " and "Athalie"
was from Villers-Cotterets.

But now we must return to its royal chatea'u and its two
thousand four hundred inhabitants.

This royal chdteau, begun by Francis L, whose sala-
manders still decorate it, and finished by Henry II, , whose
cipher it bears intwined with that of Catherine de
Medicis, and encircled by the three crescents of Diana of
Poictiers, after having sheltered the loves of the knight-
king with Mme. d'Etampes, and those of Louis Philippe

1

1 — Dumas — Vol. IX.

S TAKING THE BASTILE.

of Orleans with the beautiful Mnie. ile Montesson, had be-
come iilniost uninhtibited since the death of this last priuee ;
his son Pliilippe d'Orleans, afterward called Egalite, hav-
ing made it descend from the rank of a royal residence to
that of a mere hunting rendezvous.

It is well known tluit the chateau and forest of Villers-
Cotterets formed part of the appanage settled by Louis
XIV. on "his brother 3Ionsieur, when the second sou of
Anne of Austria married the sister of Charles II., the
Princess Henrietta of England.

As to the two thousand four hundred inhabitants of
whom we have ])romised our readers to sa}' a word, tiiey
were, as in all localities where two thousand four hun-
dred people are united, a heterogeneous assemblage.

Firstly, of a few nobles, who spent their summers in the
neighboring chateaus and their winters in Paris, and who,
mimicking the prince, had only a lodging-place in* the
city.

Secondly, of a goodly number of citizens, who could
be seen, let the weather be what it might, leaving their
houses after dinner, umbrellas in hand, to take their daily
walk, a walk which was regularl}' bounded by a deep, in-
visible ditch which separated the park from the forest,
situated about a quarter of a league from the town, and
which was called, doubtless on account of the exclama-
tion which the sight of it drew from the asthmatic lungs
of tlie iiromenaders, satisfied at finding themselves not too
much out of breath, the " Ha ! ha !"

Thirdly, of a considerably greater number of artisans,
who worked the whole of the week and only allowed them-
selves to take a walk on the Sunday, whereas their fellow-
townsmen, more favored by fortune, could enjoy it every
day.

Fourthly and finally, of some miserable proletarians, for
whom the week had not even a Sabbath, and who, after
having toiled six days in the pay of the nobles, the citizens,
or even of the artisans, wandered on the seventh day through
the forest to gather up dry wood, or branches of the lofty
trees, torn from them by the storm, that mower of the
forest to whom oak-trees are but as ears of wheat, and
which it scattered over the humid soil beneath the lofty
trees, the magnificent appanage of a prince.

If Villers-Cotterets ( Villeni ad Cotiam lietiee) had beea^

TAKING THE BASTILE. 8

unfortnnately, a town of sufficient importance in history
to induce archgeologists to ascertain and follow up its suc-
cessive changes from a village to a town, and from a town
to a city — the last, as we iiave said, being strongly con-
tested, they would certainly have proved this fact, t)iat
the village had begun by being a row of houses on either
side of the road from Paris to Soissons ; then they would
have added that its situation on the borders of a beautiful
forest having, though by slow degrees, brought to it a
great increase of inhabitants, other streets were added to
the first, diverging like the rays of a star, and leading to-
ward other small villages with which it was important to
keep up communication, and converging toward a point
which naturally became the center, that is to say, what
in the province is called ** The Square," whatever might
be its shape, and around which the handsomest buildings
of the village, now become a burgh, were erected, and in
the middle of which rises a fountain, now decorated with
a qtiadruple dial ; in short, they would have fixed the
precise date when, near the modest village church, the first
want of a people, arose the first turrets of the vast chateau,
the last caprice of a king ; a chateau which, after having
been, as we have already said, by turns a royal and a
princely residence, has, in our days, become a melancholy
and hideous receptacle for mendicants under the direction
of the Prefecture of the Seine, and to which M. Marrast
issues his man dates through delegates of whom he has not,
nor probably will ever have, either the time or the care to
ascertain the names.

But at the period at which this history commences,
royal affairs, tliough already somewhat tottering, had not
yet fallen to the low degree to which they have fallen in
our days ; the chdtcau was no longer inhabited by a prince,
'tis true, but it had not yet become the abode of beggars ;
it was simply uninhabited, excepting the indispensable
attendants required for its preservation ; among whom
were to be remarked the doorkeeper, the master of the
tennis-court, and the house-steward ; and, therefore, the
windows of this immense edifice fronting tlic park, the
other on a large court which was aristocratically called
the square of the chdteau, were all closed, which added
not a little to tlie gloominess and solitary appearance of
this sqnare, at one of the extremities of which rose a small

4 TAKING THE BASTILE.

honse, regarding which the reader, we hope, will permit

us to say a few words.

It was a small house, of which, if we may be allowed to
use the term, tlie back only was to be seen. But, as is
the case with many individuals, thisbaciv had the privilege
of being the most presentable part. lu fact, the front,
which was toward the Rue de Soissons, one of the princi-
pal streets of the town, opened upon it by an awkwardly
constructed gate, and which M'as ill-naturedly kept close
eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, wiiile tliat of the
otlier side was gay and smiling ; that is to say, tiiat on the
opposite side was a garden, above the wall of which could
be seen the tops of clierry, pear, and plum-trees, richly
laden witli their beauteous fruits, while on each side of a
small gate, l)y wliich the garden was entered from the
square, was a centenary acacia-tree, which in the spring
appeared to stretch out its branches above the wall, to
scatter their perfumed flowers over the surrounding
grounds.

This abode was the residence of the chaplain of the
chateau, who, notwithstanding the absence of the master,
performed mass every Sunday in the seignorial church.
lie had a small pension, and, besides tliis, luul the charge
of two purses, the one to send a scholar yearly to the col-
lege of Ples=^is, tlie other for one to tlie seminary of Sois-
sons. It is needless to say that it was the Orleans family
w'ho supplied these purses ; founded, that of the seminary,
by the son of the regent, that for the college by the father
of the prinro ; and that thcso two purses were tlie objects
of ambition to all parents, at the same time that they were
a cause of absolnte despair to the pupils, being the source
of extraordinary ^compositions, which compositions wore
to be presented for approval of the chaplain every Thurs-
day.

1i\^ell, one Thursday in the month of July, 1'89, a
somewhat disagreeable day, being darkened by a storm,
beneath which the two magnilicent acacias we have spolcen
of, having already lost the virginal whiteness of their
spring attire, shed a few leaves yellowed by the first heats
of summer. After a silence of some duration, broken only
by the rustling of those leaves as they whirled against one
another ujion the beaten ground of the sfpiare, or by the
shrill cry of the martin pursuing flies as he skimmed along

TAKING THE BASTILE. 5

the ground, eleven o'clock resounded from the pointed
and slated belfry of the town hall.

Instantly a hurrah, loud as could have been uttered by
a whole regiment of fusileers, accompanied by a rushing
sound like that of the avalanche when bounding from crag
to crag, was heard ; the door between the two acacia-trees
was opened, or, rather, burst open, and gave egress to a
torrent of boys, who spread themselves over the square,
when instantly some five or six joyous and noisy groups
were formed, the one around a circle formed to keep peg-
tops prisoners, another about a game of hop-scotch traced
with chalk upon the ground, another before several holes
scientifically hollowed out, where those who were fortu-
nate enough to have sous might lose them at pitch-and-
toss.

At the same time that these gambling and playful
scholars — who were apostrophized by the few neighbors,
whose windows opened on this square, as wicked do-no-
goods, and who, in general, wore trousers, the knees of
Avhicli were torn, and so were the elbows of their jackets
— assembled to play upon the square, those who were called
good and reasonable boys, and who, in the opinion of the
gossips, must be the pride and joy of their respective
parents, were seen to detach themselves from the general
mass, and by various paths, though with slow steps, indic-
ative of their regret, walking, basket in hand, toward
their paternal roofs, where awaited them the slice of broad
and butter, or of bread and preserved fruit, destined to be
their compensation for the games they had thus abjured.
The latter were, in general, dressed in jackets in tolerably
good condition, and in breeches which were almost irre-
proachable ; and this, together with their boasted propriety
of demeanor, rendered them objects of derision, and even
of hatred, to their less well-dressed, and, above all, less
well-disciplined companions.

Besides the two classes we have pointed out under the
denomination of gambling and well-conducted scholars,
there was still a third, which we shall designate by the
name of idle scholars, who scarcely ever left school with
the others, whether to play in the square or to return to
their paternal homes. Seeing that tiiis unfortunate class
were almost constantly, what in school language is termed
** kept " — which means to say, that while their compan-

6 TAKING THE BASTILE.

ions, after having said their lessons and written their
themes, wore phiying at top creating their bread and jam,
they remained nailed to their school-benches or before
tjieir desks, that they might learn their lessons or write
their themes dni-ing the hours of recreation, which they
had not been able to accomplish satisfactorily during the
class ; when, indeed, the gravity of their faults did not
demand a punishment moi'e severe than that of mere de-
tention, such as the rod, the cane, or the cat-o'-nine tails.

And had any one followed the path whicli led into the
the schoolroom, and which the pupils had Just used, in
the inverse sense, to get out of it, they would — after going
through a narrow alley, which prudently ran outside of
the fruit-garden and opened into a large yard which served
as a private play-ground — they would, as we have said,
•have heard, on entering this courtyard, a loud, harsh
voice resounding from the upper pari: of a staircase, while
a scholar, whom our impartiality as historians compels us
to acknowledge as belonging to the third class we have
mentioned, that is to say, to that of the idle boys, was pre-
cipitately descending the said staircase, making just such
a niovement with Ins shoulders as asses are wont to do
when endeavoring to rid themselves of a cruel rider, or as
scholars when they have received a sharp blow from the
cat-o'-nine-tails, to alleviate the pain they are enduring.

" Ah, miscreant ! ah you little excommunicated villain ! "
cried the voice, "ah, you young serpent ! away with you,
off with you ; vade. vadc! Remember that for three wliole
years have I been patient with you, but there are rascals
who would tire the patience of even (Jod himself. But
now it is all over ; I have done with you. Take your squir-
rels, take your frogs, take your lizards, take your silk-
worms, take your cockchafers, and go to your aunt, goto
your uncle if you have one, or to the devil if you will,
so that I never more set eyes upon you ; vade, vade!"

" Oh ! my good Monsieur Fortier, do, pray, forgive me,"
replied the other voice, still upon the staircase and in a
supplicating tone. " Is it worth your while to put your-
self into such a towering passion for a poor little barbarism
and a few solecisms, as you call them ? "

"Three barbarisms and seven solecisms in a theme of
only twenty-five lines ! " replied the voice, iu a rougher
and still more angry tone.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 7

**It has been so to-day, sir, I r.cknowledge ; Thursday is
always my unhicky day ; but if by chance to-morrow my
theme should be Avell written, would you not forgive me
Diy misfortunes of to-day ? Tell me, uow, would you not,
my good abbe ? "

' On every composition day for the last three years you
have repeated that same thing to me, you idle fellow, and
the examination is fixed for the first of November, and I,
on the entreaty of your aunt Angelique, have had the
weakness to put your name down on the list of candidates
for the Soissons purse ; 1 shall have the shame of seeing
my pupil rejected, and of hearing it everywhere declared
that Pitou is an ass— Angelas Petovius asinus est."

Let us hasten to say — that the kind-hearted reader may,
from the first moment, feel for him all the interest he de-
serves— that Ange Pitou, whose name the Abbe Fortier
had so picturesquely latinized, is the hero of the story.

" Oh, my good Monsieur Fortier ! oh, my dear master ! "
replied he, in despair.

" I, your master ! " exclaimed the abbe, deeply humil-
iated by the appellation, " Clod be thanked, I am no
more your master than you are my pupil. I disown you —
I do not know you. I would that I had never seen you.
I forbid you to mention my name, or even bow to me.
Retro, miserable boy, retro! "

" Oh, Monsieur Abbe," insisted the unhappy Pitou, who
appeared to have some weigiity motive for not falling out
Avith his master, ''do not, I entreat you, withdraw your
interest for me on account of a poor, halting theme."

"Ah!" exclaimed the abbe, quite beside himself on
hearing this last supplication, and running down the first
four steps of the staircase, while Ange Pitou jumped down
the four bottom ones, and could thus be seen from the
courtyard. '* Ah ! you are chopping logic wlien you can
not even write a theme ; you are calculating the extent of
my patience, whcji you know not how to distinguish the
nominative from the vocative."

"You have always been so kind to me. Monsieur
I'Abbe," replied the committer of barbarisms, " and you
will only have to say a word in my favor to my lord the
bishop."

" AVould you have me belie my conscience, wretched
boy 'i " cried the infuriated ubbe.

8 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' If it be to do a good action, Monsieur rAbb6, the God
of mercy will forgive yon for it."

** Never ! never ! "

** And, besides, who knows, the examiners perhaps will
not be more severe toward me than they were toward my
foster-brother, Sebastian Gilbert, wlien last year he was a
candidate for the Paris purse ; and he was a famous fellow
for barbarisms, if ever there was one, although he was only
thirteen years old, and I am seventeen."

" Ah, indeed ! and this is another precious stupidity
which you have uttered," cried the abbe, coming down the
remaining steps, and in his turn appearing at the door
with his cat-o'-nine-tails in his hancl, while Pitou took
care to keep at the prudent distance from his professor
which he had all along maintained. " Yes, I say stupid-
ity," continued the abbe, crossing his arms and looking
indignantly at his scholar ; *'and this is the reward of my
lessons. Triple animal that you are ! it is thus you re-
member the old axiom — Xoli minora, loqui majora voJeiis.
Why, it was precisely because Gilbert was so much younger,
that they were more indulgent toward a child — a child
of fourteen years old — than they would have been to a
great simpleton of nearly eighteen."

**Yes, and because he is the son of Monsieur HonorS
Gilbert, who has an income of eighteen thousand livrea
from good landed property, and this on the plain of Pil-
lalen," replied the logician, in a piteous tone.

The Abbe Fortier looked at Pitou, pouting his lips and
knitting his brows.

*' This is somewhat less stupid," grumbled he, after a
moment's silence and scrutiny. ** And yet it is but spe-
cious, and without any basis : Species no7i auiem corpus.'*

" Oh 1 if I were the son of a man possessing an income
of eighteen thousand livres ! " repeated Ange Pitou, who
thought he perceived that his answer liad made some im-
pression on the professor.

** Yes; but you are not so, and to make up for it, yon
are as ignorant as the clown of whom Juvenal speaks — a
profane citation," tlie abbe crossed himself, ** but no less
just — Arcadius juvenis, I would wager that you do not
even know what Arcadius means."

"Why, Arcadian, to bo sure," replied Ange Pitou,
drawing' himself up with the majesty of pride.

TAKING THE BaSTILE. 9

" And what besides ? "

" Besides what ? "

** Arcadia was the country of donkeys, and with the
ancients, as with us, asinus Avas synonymous with stnltiis."

"I did not wish to understand your question in that
sense," rejoined Pitou, *' seeing that it was far from my
imagination that the austere mind of my worthy preceptor
could have descended to satire.'*

The Abbe Fortier looked at him a second time, and
with as profound attention as the first.

"Upon my word!" cried he, somewhat mollified by
the incense which his disciple had offered him ; '* there
are really moments when one would swear that the fellow
is less stupid than he appears to be."

" Come, Monsieur I'Abb^," said Pitou, who, if he had
not heard the words the abbe had uttered, had caught the
expression which had passed over his countenance, of a
return to a more merciful consideration ; " forgive me
this time, and yon will see what a beautiful theme I will
write by to-morrow."

" Well, then, I will consent," said the abbe, placing, in
sign of truce, his cat-o'-nine-tails in his belt, and approach-
ing Pitou, who, observing this pacific demonstration, made
no further attempt to move.

" Oh, thanks, thanks ! " cried the pupil.

" Wait a moment and be not so hasty with your thanks.
Yes, I forgive you, but on one condition."

Pitou hung down his head, and as he was not at the dis-
cretion of the abbe, he waited with resignation.

" It is that you shall correctly reply to a question I shall
put to you."

**In Latin ?" inquired Pitou, with much anxiety.

** In Latin," replied the professor.

Pitou drew a deep sigh.

There was a momentary silence, during wnich the joy-
ous cries of tlie schoolboys who were playing on the square
reached the ears of Ange Pitou. He sighed a second
time, more deeply than the first.

" Qziid virtus^ quid religio?" asked the abbe.

These words, pronounced with all the pomposity of
a pedagogue, raiig in the ears of poor Ange Pitou like
tlie trumpet of the angel on the day of judgment ; a cloud
passed before his eyes, and such an effect was p 'oduced

10 - TAKING THE BASTILE.

npon his intellect by it, that he thought for a moment he
was on the point of becoming maJ.

However, as this violent cerebral labor did not appear
to produce any result, the required answer was indefi-
nitely postponed. A prolonged noise was then heard, as
the professor slowly inhaled a pinch of snuff.

Pitou clearly saw that it was necessary to say something.

" Nescio ! " he replied, hoping that his ignorance would
be pardoned by his avowing that ignorance in Latin.

'•'You do not know what is virtue!" exclaimed the
abbe, choking with rage ; " you do not know what is re-
ligion ! "

** I know very well what it is in French,'' replied Ange,
'*but I do not know it in Latin."

**Well, then, get thee to Arcadia, juvenis ; all is now
ended between us, pitiful wretch ! "

Pitou was so overwhelmed that he did not move a step,
although the Abbe Fortier had drawn his cat-o'-niue-tails
from his belt with as much dignity as the commander of
an army would, at the commencement of a battle, have
drawn his sword from the scabbard.

*'But what is to become of me ? " cried the poor youth,
letting his arms fall listlessly by his sides. ** What will
become of me if I lose the hope of being admitted into
the seminary ? "

*' Become whatever you can. It is, by Heaven ! the
same to me."

The good abbe was so angry that he almost swore.

*' But you do not know, then, that my aunt believes I
am already an abbe ? "

** Well, then, she will know that you are not fit to be
made even a sacristan."

"But Monsieur Fortier "

*' I tell you to depart — limine lingucB."

'MVell, then," cried Pitou, as a man who makes up his
miud to a painful resolution, but who, in fact, does make
it, '* will you allow me to take my desk ?" said he to the
abbe, hoping that during the time he would be perform-
ing this operation a respite would be given him, and tlio
abbe's heart would become impressed with more merciful
feelings.

" Most assuredly," said the latter, "your desk, with all
that it contains."

TAKING THE BASTILE. H

Pitou sorrowfully reascended the staircase, for the school-
room was on the first floor. On returning to the room —
in which, assembled around a large table, and pretending
to be hard at work, were seated some fourteen boys — and
carefully raising the flap of his desk to ascertain whether
all the animals and insects which belonged to him were
safely stowed in it, and lifting it so gently that it proved
the great care he took of his favorites, he walked with
slow and measured steps along the corridor.

At the top of the stairs was the Abbe Fortier, with out-
stretched arm, pointing to the staircase with the end of
his cat-o'-nine-tails.

It was necessary to pass beneath this terrible instru-
ment of justice. Ange Pitou made himself as hnmble and
as small as he possibly could, but this did not prevent
him from receiving, as he passed by, a last thwack from
the instrument to which Abbe Fortier owed his best pupils,
and tlie employment of which, although more frequent
and more prolonged on the back of Ange Pitou, had pro-
duced the sorrowful results just witnessed.

While Ange Pitou, wiping away a last tear, was bend-
ing his steps, his desk upon his head, toward the pious
quarter of tlie town in which his aunt resided, let us say a
few words as to his physical appearance and his antecedents.

CHAPTER II.

Louis Ange Pitou, as he himself said, in his dialogue
with the Abbe Fortier, was, at the period when this his-
tory commences, seventeen and a half years old. He was
a tall, slender youth, with yellow hair, red cheeks, and
blue eyes. The bloom of youth, fresh and innocent, was
expanded over his wide mouth, the thick lips of which
discovered when extended by a hearty laugh, two per-
fectly complete rows of formidable teeth — particularly
formidable to those of whose dinner h<3 was about to par-
take. At the end of his long bony arms were solidly at-
tached hands as large as beetles, legs rather inclined to be
bowed, knees as big as a child's head, which regularly
made their way through his tight black breeches, and im-
mense feet, which, notwithstanding, wore at their ease in

12 TAKING THE BASTILE.

calf-skin shoes reddened by constant use ; such, with a
Bort of cassock, a garment something between a frock-coat
and a blouse, is an exact and impartial description of the
ex-disciple of the Abbe Fortier.

We must now sketch his moral character,
Ange Pitou had been left an orphan when only twelve
years old, the time at which he had the misfortune to lose
his mother, of whom he was the only child. That is to
gay, that since the death of his father, which event had
occurred before he had attained the years of recollection,
Ange Pitou, adored by his poor mother, had been allowed
to do whatever bethought lit, Avhich had greatly developed
his pliysical education, but had altogether retarded the
advancement of his moral faculties. Born in a charming
village called Haramont, situated at the distance of a league
from the town, and in the center of a wood, his first walks
had been to explore the depths of his native forest, and the
first application of his intelligence was that of making war
upon tlie animals by which it was inhabited. The result
of this application, thus directed toward one sole object,
was, that at ten yer.rs old Pitou was a very distinguished
poacher, and a lird-catcher of the first order ; and that
almost without any '-,bor, and above all, without receiving
lessons from any one, but by the sole power of tliat instinct
given by nature to man when born in the midst of woods,
and which would seem to be a portion of that same in-
stinct with which he has endowed the animal kingdom.
And, therefore, every run of hare or rabbit within the
circle of three leagues was known to him, and not a marshy
pool, where birds were wont to drink, had escaped his in-
vestigation. In every direction were to be seen the marks
made by his pruning-knife on trees that were adapted to
catching birds by imitating their calls. From these differ-
ent exercises it resulted that in some of them Pitou had
attained the most extraordinary skill.

Thanks to his long arms and his prominent knees, which
enabled him to climb the largest standard trees, lie wonld
ascend to their very summits, to take the highest nests,
with an agility and a certainty which attracted the admira^
tion of his companions, and whicli, in a latitude near to
the equator, would have excited the esteem even of
monkeys. In that sport, so attractive even to grown
people, in which the bird-catcher inveigles the birds to

TAKING THE BASTILE. 13

light upon a tree set with limed twigs, by imitatingthe cry
of the jay or the owlet — birds which, among the plumed
tribe, enjoy the bitter hatred of the whole species, and to
snch an extent that every sparrow, every finch or tomtit,
hastens at the call in the hope of plucking out a single
feather from the common enemy, and, for the most part,
leave all their own — Pitou's companions either made use
of a natural owlet or a natural jay, or with some particular
plant formed a pipe, by aid of which they managed to
imitate the cry of either the one or the other of these
birds. But Pitou disdained all such preparations, despised
such petty subterfuges. It was upon his own resources
that he relied, it was with his own natural means that he
drew them into the snare. It was, in short, his own lips
that modulated the shrieking and discordant cries, which
brouglit around him not only other birds, but birds of the
same species, who allowed themselves to be enticed, we
will not say by this note, but by this cry, so admirably did
he imitate it. As to the sport in the marshy pools, it was
to Pitou the easiest thing in the world, and he would cer-
tainly have despised it as a pursuit of art, had it been less
productive as an object of profit. But notwithstanding
the contempt with which he regarded this sport, there was
not one of the most expert in the art who could have vied
with Pitou in covering with fern a pool that was too ex-
tensive to be completely laid — that is the tcclmical term ;
none of them knew so well as he how to give the proper in-
clination to his limed twigs, so that the most cunning
birds could not drink either over or under them ; and,
finally, none of them had that steadiness of hand and that
clear-sightedness which must insure the due mixture,
though in scientifically unequal quantities, of the rosin,
oil, and glue, in order that the glue should not become
either too fluid or too brittle.

Now, as the estimation of the qualities of a man changes
according to the theater on which these qualities are pro-
duced, and according to the spectators before whom they
are exhibited, Pitou, in his own native village, Haramont,
amid his country neighbors — that is to say, men accustomed
to demand of nature at least half their resources, and, like
all peasants, possessing an instinctive hatred of civilization,
Pitou enjoyed such distinguished consideration that his
poor mother could not for a moment entertain the idea

14 TAKING THE BASTILE.

that he was pursuing a wrong path, and although the most
perfect education that can be given, and ut great expense,
to a man, was not precisely that which her son, a privi-
leged person in this respect, had given, gratis, to hini-

BClf.

But when the good woman fell sick, when she felt that
death was approaching, when she understood that she waa
al)Out to leave her child alone and isolated in the world,
she began to entertain doubts and looked around her for
some one who would be the stay and the support of the
future orphan. Slie then remembered that ten years be-
fore a young man had knocked at her door in the middle
of the night, bringing with him a newly born child, to
take charge of which he had not only given her a tolerably
good round sum, but had deposited a still larger sum for
the benefit of the cliild with a notary at Villers-Cotterets.
All that she had then known of this mysterious young man
was that his name was Gilbert ; but about three years pre-
vious to her falling ill he had reappeared. He was then a
man about twenty-seven years of age, somewhat stiff in his
demeanor, dogmatical in his conversation, and cold in his
manner ; but this first layer of ice melted at once when his
child was brought to him, on finding that he was hale,
hearty, and smiling, and brought up in the way in which
he had directed — that is to say, as a child of nature. He
then pressed the hand of the good woman, and merely said
to her :

" In the hour of need calculate upon me."

Then he had taken the cliild, had inquired the way to
Ermenonville, and with his son performed the pilgrimage
to the tomb of Rousseau, after which he returned to Vil-
lers-Cotterets. Then, seduced, no doubt, by the whole-
some air he breathed there, by tlie favorable manner in
which the notary had spoken of the scliool under the
charge of the Abbe Fortier, he had left little Gilbert with
tlie wortliy man, whose philosophic appearance had struck
him at first siglit ; for at that period philosopliy held such
great sway that it had insinuated itself even among church-
men.

After this ho had set out again for Paris, leaving his
address with tlie Abbe Fortier.

Pitou's mother was aware of all tliese circumstances.
When at the point of death, those words, "In the hour

TAKING THE BASTILE. 15

of need calculate npon me," returned to her recollection.
This was at once a ray of light to her ; doubtless. Provi-
dence had regulated all this in such a manner that poor
Pitou might find even more than he was about to lose.
She sent for the curate of the parish ; as she had never
learned to write, the curate wrote, and the same day the
letter was taken to the Abbe Fortier, who immediately
added Gilbert's address, and took it to the post-office.

It was high time, for the poor woman died two days
afterward. Pitou was too young to feel the full extent of
the loss he had suffered. He wept for his mother, not
from compreliending the eternal separation of the grave,
but because he saw his mother cold, pale, disfigured.
Then the poor lad felt instinctively that the guardian
angel of their hearth had flown from it ; that the house,
deprived of his mother, had become deserted and unin-
habitable. Kou only could he not comprehend what was
to be his future fate, but even how he was to exist the
following day. Therefore, after following his mother's
coffin to the churchyard, when the earth, thrown into the
grave, resounded upon its lid, when the modest mound
that covered it had been rounded off, he sat down upon it,
and replied to every observation that Avas made to him as
to his leaving it, by shaking his head and saying that he
never left his mother, and that he would remain where she
remained.

He stayed during the whole of that day and night, seated
upon his mother's grave.

It was there that the worthy Dr. Gilbert — but have we
already informed the reader that the future protector of
Pitou was a physician ? — it was there that the worthy
doctor found him, when, feeling the full extent of the
duty imposed upon him by the promise he had made, he
had hastened to fulfil it, and this within forty-eight hours
after the letter had been despatched.

Ange was very young when he had first seen the doctor,
but it is well known that the impressions received in youth
are so strong that they leave eternal reminiscences. Then
the passage of the mysterious young man had left its trace
in tlie house. He had there left the young child of whom
we have spoken, and with him comparative ease and com-
fort ; every time that Ange had heard his mother pro-
nounce the name of Gilbert, it had been with a feeling that

16 TAKING THE BASTILE.

approached to adoration ; then again, when he had reap-
peared at the house a grown man, and with the title of
doctor, when he had added to the benefits he had showered
npon it tiie promise of future protection, Pitou had com-

Erehonded, from tlie fervent gratitude of his mother, that
e himself ought also to be grateful, and the poor youth,
without precisely understanding what he was saying, had
stammered out the words of eternal remembrance and
profound gratitude which had before been uttered by his
mother.

Therefore, as soon as he saw the doctor appear at the
grated gate of the cemetery, and saw him advancing to-
ward him amid the mossy graves and broken cro ', he
recognized him, rose up, and went to meet him ; for he
understood that to the person who had thus come, on being
called for by his mother, he could not say no, as he had
done to others ; he, therefore, made no further resistance
than that of turning back to give a last look at the grave,
when Gilbert took him by the hand and gently drew him
away from the gloomy inclosure. An elegant cabriolet
was standing at the gate ; he made the poor child get into
it, and for the moment, leaving the house of Pitou's mother
under the guardianship of public faith and the interest
which misfortune always inspired, he drove his young pro-
tege to the town and alighted with him at the best inn,
which at that time was called The Dauphin. He was
scarcely installed there when he sent for a tailor, who, hav-
ing been forewarned, brought with him a quantity of
ready-made clothes. He, with due precaution, selected
for Pitou garments which were too long for him by two or
three inches, a superfluity, which, from the rate at which
our hero was growing, promised not to be of long
duration. After this, he walked witii him toward that
quarter of the town which we have designated as the pious
quarter.

The nearer Pitou approached this quarter, the slower
did his steps become, for it was evident that he was about
to be conducted to the house of his aunt Angelique ; and
notwithstanding that he had but seldom seen his godmother
— for it was Aunt Angelicjue who had bestowed on Pitou
his poetical Ciiristian name — he had retained a very formi-
dable remembrance of his respectable relative.

And, in fact, there was nothing about Aunt Angelique

TAKING THE BASTILE. 17

that could be in any way attractive to a child accustomed
to all the tender cares of maternal solicitude. Aunt Auge-
lique was at that time an old maid between fifty-five and
fifty-eight years of age, stultified by the most minute
practises of religious bigotry, and in whom an ill-under-
stood piety had inverted every charitable, merciful, and
humane feeling, to cultivate in their stead a natural dose
of avaricious intelligence, which was increased day by day
from her constant intercourse with the bigoted old gossips
of the town. She did not precisely live on charity; but
besides the sale of the thread she spun upon her wheel,
and the letting out of chairs in the church, which office
had been granted to her by the chapter, she from time to
time received from pious souls, who allowed themselves to
be deceived by her pretensions to religion, small sums
which, from their original copper, she converted into
silver, and then from silver into golden louis, which disap-
peared not only without a7iy person seeing them disappear,
but without any one ever suspecting their existence, and.
which were buried, one by one, in the cushion of the arm-
chair upon which she sat to work, and when once in this
hiding-place, they rejoined by degrees a certain number of
their fellow-coins, which had been gathered one by one,
and like them destined thenceforth to be sequestered from
circulation, until the unknown day of the death of the old
maid should place them in the hands of her heir.

It was, then, toward the abode of this venerable relation
that Dr. Gilbert was advancing, leading the great Pitou
by the hand.

We say the great Pitou, because from three months
after his birth Pitou had been too tall for his age.

Mile. Ivose Angelique Pitou, at the moment when her
door opened to give ingress to her nephew and the doctor,
was in a perfect transport of joyous humor. While they
were singing mass for the dead over the dead body of her
sister-iu-law in the church at Ilaramont, there was a wed-
ding and several baptisms in the church of Villers-Cot-
terets, so that her chair-letting had, in a single day,
amounted to six livrcs. Mile. Angelique had, therefore,
converted her pence into a silver crown, which, in its turn
added to three others which had been put by at different
periods, had given her a golden louis. This louis had, at
this precise moment, been sent to join the others in the

18 TAKING THE BASTILE.

chair cnshion, and these days of reunion were naturally
days of high festivity to Mile. Angelique.

It was at this moment, and after having oiDened her
door, which had been closed during the important opera-
tion, and Aunt Angelique had taken a last walk round her
armchair to assure herself that no external demonstration
could reveal the existence of the treasure concealed within,
that the doctor and Pitou entered.

The scene might have been particularly affecting ; but
in the eyes of a man who was so perspicacious an observer
as Dr. Gilbert, it was merely grotesque. On perceiving
her nephew, the old bigot uttered a few words about her
poor, dear sister, whom she had loved so much ; and then
she appeared to wipe away a tear. On his side, the doctor,
who wished to examine the deepest recesses of the old
maid's heart before coming to any determination with re-
spect to her, took upon himself to utter a sort of sermon on
the duties of aunts toward their nephews. But by de-
grees, as the sermon was progressing and the unctuous
words foil from the doctor's lips, the arid eyes of the old
maid drank up the imperceptible tear which had moistened
them ; all her features resumed the dryness of parchment,
with wliich tliey appeared to be covered ; she raised her
left hand to the height of her pointed chin, and with the
right hand she began to calculate on her skinny lingers
the quantity of pence which her letting of chairs produced
for her per annum. So that cliance having so directed it
that her calculation had terminated at the same time with
the doctor's sermon, she could reply at the very moment
that whatever might have been the love she entertained
for her poor sister, and the degree of interest she might
feel for her dear nephew, the mediocrity of her receipts
did not permit her, notwithstanding her double title of
aunt and godmother, to incur any increased expense.

The doctor, however, was prepared for this refusal. It
did not, therefore, in any way surprise him. He was a
great advocate for new ideas ; and as the first volume of
Lavater had just then appeared, he had already applied
the physiognomic doctrines of the Zuric philosopher to
the yellow and skinny features of ]\Illc. Angelique.

The result of tliis examination was, that the doctor felt
assured, from the small sharp eyes of the old maid, her
long and pinched up nose and thin lips, that she united in

TAKING THE BASTILE. 19

her single jjerson the three sius of avarice, selfishness, and
hypocrisy.

Her answer, as we have said, did not canse any species
of astonishment. However, he wished to convince himself
in his quality of observer of human nature, how far the
devotee would carry the development of these three defects.

" But, mademoiselle," said he, " Ange Pitou is a poor
orphan child, the son of your own brother, and in the
name of humanity you cannot abandon your brother's sou
to be dependent on j)ublic charity."

''Well, now, listen to me. Monsieur Gilbert," said the
old maid ; " it would be an increase of expense of at least
six sons a day, and that at the lowest calculation ; for that
great fellow would eat at least a pound of bread a day."

Pitou made a wry face ; he was in the habit of eating a
pound and a half at his bi-eakfast alone.

" And without calculating the soap for his washing,"
added Mile. Angelique ; '' and I recollect that he is a sad
one for dirtying clothes."

In fact, Pitou did sadly dirty his clothes, and that is
very conceivable when we remember the life he had led,
climbing trees and lying down in marshes ; but we must
render him this justice, that he tore his clothes even more
than he soiled them.

"Oh, fy, mademoiselle !" cried the doctor, *'fy. Made-
moiselle Angelique ! Can you, who so well practise
Christian charity, enter into such minute calculations
with regard to your own nephew ? "

" And without calculating the cost of his clothes," cried
the old devotee, most energetically, who suddenly remem-
bered having seen her sister Madeleine busily employed in
sewing patches on her nephew's jacket and knee-caps on
his small clothes.

*' Then," said the doctor, " am I to understand that you
refuse to take charge of your nephew ? The orphan who
has been repulsed from his aunt's threshold will be com-
pelled to beg for alms at the threshold of strangers."

Mile. Angelique, notwithstanding her avarice, was alive
to the odium which would naturally attach to her, if from
her refusal to receive her nephew he should be compelled
to have recourse to such an extremity.

" No," said she ; " I will take charge of him,"
Ah .' " exclaimed the doctor, happy to find a single

a

20 TAKING THE BASTILE.

good feeling in a heart which lie had thought completely
withered.

"Yes," continued tlic devotee, ** I will recommend him
to the Augustiii Fri:irs at Bourg Fontaine, and he shall
enter their monastery as a lay servant."

We have already said that tiie doctor was a philosopher.
We know what was the meaning of the word philosopher
in those days.

He, therefore, instantly resolved to snatch a neophyte
from the Augustiu brotherhood, and that with as much
zealous fervor as the Augnstins, on their side, could have
displayed in carrying oif an adept from the philosopher.

** Well, then," he rejoined, plunging his hand into his
deep pocket, *' since you are in such a position of pecuniary
ditticulty, my dear Mademoiselle Angelique, as to be com-
peHed, i'rom your deficiency in personal resources, to rec-
ommend your nephew to the charity of others, I will seek
elsewhere for some one who can more efticaciously tlian
yourself apply to tlie maintenance of your nephew the sum
which I had designed for him. I am obliged to return to
America. I will, before I set out, apprentice your nephew
Pi ton to some joiner or smith. He shall, however, him-
self choose the trade for which he feels a vocation. Dur-
ing my absence he will grow bigger, and on my retnrn he
will already have become acquainted with his business,
and then — why, I shall see what can be made of him.
Come, my child, kiss your aunt," continued the doctor,
" and let us be off at once.''

The doctor had not concluded the sentence, wlicn Piton
rushed toward the antiquated spinster ; his long arms
were extended, and he was, in fact, most eager to embrace
his aunt, on the condition that this kiss was to be the
signal, between him and her, of an eternal separation.

But at the words "The Sum," the gesture with which
the doctor had accompanied it, the thrusting his hand
into his pocket, the silvery sound which that h;ind liad
incontinently given to a heap of crown-pieces, the amount
of which might have been estimated by the tension of the
pocket, the old maid had felt the fire of cupidity mount
even to her heart,

" Oh ! " cried she, " my dear Monsieur Gilbert, you
must be well aware of one thing."

** And what is that ? " asked the doctor.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 21

** Why, good Henven ! that no one in the world can
love this poor child half so much as I do.''

And intwiniug her scraggy arms round Piton's neck,
she imprinted a sour kiss on each of his cheeks, Avhich
made him shudder from the tips of his toes to the roots of
his hair.

"Oh, certainly," replied the doctor; "I know that
well, and I so little doubted your affection for him that I
brought him at once to you as his natural support. But
that which you have just said to me, dear mademoiselle,
has convinced me at the same time of your good-will and
of your ability, and I see clearly that you are too poor to
aid those who are poorer than yourself."

" Why, my good Monsieur Gilbert," rejoined the old
devotee, " there is a merciful God in heaven, and from
heaven does He not feed all His creatures ? "

*' That is true," replied Gilbert; "but although He
gives food to the ravens. He does not jjut out orphans as
apprentices. Now, this is what must be d6ne for Ange
Piton, and this, with your small means, would doubtless
cost you too much."

" But yet, if you were to give that sum, good Monsieur
Gilbert—"

" What sum ? "

" The sum of which you spoke, the sum wliich is there
in your pocket," added Ihe devotee, stretching her crooked
finger toward the doctor's coat.

"■ I will assuredly give it, dear i\rademoiselle Angelique,"
said the doctor ; "but I forewarn you it will be on one
condition."

"And what is that?"

"That the boy shall have a profession."

" He shall have one, and that I promise you on the
faith of Angelique Pitou, most worthy doctor," cried the
devotee, her eyes riveted on the pocket which Avas swaying
to and fro.

" You promise it ? "

"I promise you it shall be so."

" Seriously, is it not ? "

" On the truth of the living God, my dear Monsieur
Gilbert, I swear to do it."

And Mile. Angelique horizontally extended her emaciated
hand.

22 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"Well, tlien, be it so," said tlie doctor, drawing from
his pocket a well-rounded bag ; '" I am ready to give the
money, iis you see. On your side, are you ready to make
yourself responsible to me for the child ?"

** Upon the true cross, ]\lon8ieur Gilbert."

" Do not lot us swear so much, dear mademoiselle, but
let us sign a little more."

" I will sign, Monsieur Gilbert, I will sign."

*' Before a notary ? "

** Before a notary."

" Well, then, let ns go at once to Papa Niguefc."

Papa Niguet, to whom, thanks to his long acquaintance
with him, the doctor applied this friendly title, was, as
those know who are familiar with our woik entitled
" Joseph Balsamo," the notary of greatest reputation iu
the town.

Mile. Angelique, of whom Master Xiguet was also the
notary, had no objection to offer to the choice made by the
doctor. She followed him, therefore, to the notary's
office. There the scrivener registered the promise made
by Mile. Rose Angelique Pitou, to take charge of and to
place in the exercise of an honorable profession, Louis
Ange Pitou, her nephew, and for so doing should annually
receive the sum of two hundred livres. The contract was
made for five years; tlie doctor de])0sitcd eight hundred
livres in the hands of the notary, the other two hundred
were to be paid to Mile. Angelique in advance.

The following day the doctor left Villers-Cotterets, after
having settled some accounts with one of his faruiers,
with regard to whom we shall speak hereafter. And Mile.
Pitou, pouncing like a vulture upon the aforesaid two
hundred livres payable in advance, deposited eight golden
louis in the cushion of her armchair.

As to the eight livres which remained, they waited, in a
small delf saucer which had, during the last thirty or forty
years, been the rcco]")tacle of clouds of coins of every de-
scription, until the harvest of the following two or three
Sundays had made up the sum of twenty-four livres, on
attaining which, as we have already stated, the above-
named sum underwent the goMon motamorphosis, and
passed from the saucer into the armchair.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 23

CHAPTER III.

We have observed the very slight degree of inclination
which Ange Pitoii felt toward a long-continued sojourn
with his aunt Angelique ; the poor child, endowed with
instinct equal to, and perhaps superior to, that of the
animals against whom he continually made war, had divined
afc once, we will not say all the disappointments — we have
seen that he did not for a single moment delude himself
upon the subject — but all the vexations, tribulations, and
nnoyances to which lie awould be exposed.

In the first place — but we must admit that this was by
no means the reason which most influenced Pitou to dis-
like his aunt — Dr. Gilbert, having left Villers-Cotterets,
there never was a word said about placing the child as an
apprentice. The good notary had indeed given her a hint
or two with regard to her formal obligations ; but Mile.
Angelique had replied that her nephew was very young,
and, above all, that his health was too delicate to be sub-
jected to labor which would probably be beyond his
strength. The notary, on hearing this observation, had
in good faith admired the kindness of heart of Mile. Pitou,
and had deferred taking any steps as to the apprenticeship
until the following year. There was no time lost, the
chikl being then only in his twelfth year.

Once installed at his aunt's, and while the latter was
ruminating as to the mode she should adopt whereby to
make the most of her dear ncpliew, Pitou, who once more
found himself in his forest, or very near to it, had already
made his topographical observations in order to lead the
same life at Villers-Cotterets as at Ilaramont.

In fact, lie had made a circuit of the noigliborliood, in
which he had convinced himself that the best pools were
those on the road to Damploux, that to Campeigne and
that to Vivicres, and that the best district for game was
that of the Bruyere-aux-Loups.

Pitou, having made this survey, took all the necessary
measures for pursuing his juvenile sport.

The thing the most easy to be procured, as it did not

24 TAKING THE BASTILE.

reqnire any ontlay of capital, was bird-lime ; the bark of
the holly, brayed in a mortar and steeped in water, gave
the lime ; and as to the twigs to be limed, they were to be
found by thousands on every bireii-treo in the neighbor-
hood. Pitou, therefore, manufactured, without saving a
word to any one on the subject, a thousand of limed twigs
and a pot of glue of the first quality, and one fine morning,
after having the previous evening taken, on his aunt's ac-
count at the baker's, a four-pound loaf, he set off at day-
break, remained out the whole day, and returned home
when the evening had closed in.

Pitou had not formed such a resolution without duly
calculating the effect it would produce. He had foreseen
a tempest. Without possessing the wisdom of Socrates,
he knew the temper of his aunt Angelique as well as the
illustrious tutor of Alcibiades knew that of his wife
Xautippe.

Pitou had not deceived himself in his foresight, but he
thought he would be able to brave the storm by presenting
to the old devotee the produce of his day's sport ; only he
had not been able to foretell from what spot the thunder
would be hurled at him.

The thunderbolt struck him immediately on entering
the house.

Mile. Angelique had ensconced herself behind the door,
that she might not miss her nephew as he entered, so that
at the very moment ho ventured to put his foot into the
room, he received a cuff upon the occiput, and in which,
without further information, he at once recognized the
witliered hand of the old devotee.

Fortunately, Pitou's head was a tolerably hard one, and,
although the blow had scarcely staggered him, he made
believe, in order to mollify his aunt, whose anger had in-
creased from having hurt her lingers in striking with such
violence, to fall, stumbling as he went, at the opposite
ond of tlio room ; there, seated on the floor, and seeing that
his aunt was returning to the assault, her distaff in one
hand, he hastened to draw from his pocket the talisman on
whioli he had relied to allay the storm, and (tbtain })ardon
for his flight. And this was two dozen of birds, among
which were a dozen redbreasts and half a dozen thrushes,

Mile. Angelique, perfectly astounded, opcnrd her eyes
widely, coutiuuiug toecold for form's sake ; but although

TAKING THE BASTILE. 26

still scolding, she took possession of her nephew's sport,
retreating three paces toward the lamp.

''' What is this ? " she asked.

*' You must see clearly enough, my dear little aunt
Augelique," replied Pitou, *' that they are birds."

" Good to eat ?" eagerly inquired the old maid, who, in
her quality of devotee, was naturally a great eater.

"Good to eat!" reiterated Pitou; "well, that is sin-
gular. Redbreasts and thrushes good to eat ! 1 believe
they are, indeed ! "

" And where did you steal these birds, you little
wretch ?"

*' I did not steal them ; I caught them.'*

" Caught them — how ?"

" By lime-twigging them."

" Lime-twigging — what do you mean by that ? "

Pitou looked at his aunt with an air of astonishment ;
he could not comprehend that the education of any per-
son in existence could have been so neglected as not to
know the meaning of lime-twigging.

" Lime-twigging ? " said he ; " why, zounds ! 'tis lime-
twigging."

" Yes ; but, saucy fellow, I do not understand what you
mean by lime-twigging."

"Well, you see, aunt, in the forest here there are at
least thirty small pools ; you place the lime twigs around
them, and when tlio birds go to drink there, as they do
not, silly things, know anything about them, they run
their heads into them and are caught."

" By what ? "

" By the bird-lime."

" Ah ! ah ! " exclaimed Aunt Angelique ; " I under-
stand. But who gave you the money ?"

"Money!" exclaimed Pitou, astonished that any one
could have believed that he had ever possessed a penny ;
** money. Aunt Angelique?"

" Yes."

"No one."

" But where did you buy the bird-lime, then ?"

" I made it myself."

"And the lime-twigs ?"

** I made them also, to be sure,'*

** Therefore, these birds "

2— Dumas— Vol. IX.

26 TAKING THE BASTILE.

'' Well, niint ? "

" Cost you notlniig ? "

" Tlie trouble of stooping to pick them up,"

*' And can you go often to these pools ? "

*' One might go every day."

''(iood !"

'' Only, it would not do."

'• What would not do ?"

" To go tliere every day."

" And for what reason ? "

" Why, because it would ruin it."

" Ruin what ? "

" The lime-twigging. You understand, Aunt Ange-
iique, tliat tiie birds which are caught "

"Well?"

** Well, they can't return to the pool."

" That is true," said the aunt.

Tiiis was the first time, since Pitou had lived with her,
that Aunt Angelique had allowed her nephew was in the
right, and this unaccustomed approbation perfectly de-
lighted him.

" But," said he, " the days that one does not go to the
pools one goes somewhere else. The days we do not catch
birds, we catch something else."

*'' And what do you catch ?"

" AVhy, we catch rabbits." -

''Rabbits?"

" Yes ; we eat the rabbits and sell their skins. A rabbit
skin is worth two sous."

Aunt Angelique gazed at her nephew with astonished
eyes ; she had iicver considered him so great an economist.
Pitou had suddenly revealed himself.

" But will it not be my business to sell tlie skins ?"

"Undoubtedly," rej)lied I'itou ; "as Mamma >radeline
used to do."

It had never entered the mfnd of the boy that he could
claim any part of the produce of his sport, except that
which lie consumed.

" And when will you go out to catch ra.l)bits ? "

" Ah ! tliat's another matter — when I can get the wires,"
replied IMtou.

*' Well, then, make the wires."

Pitou shook his head.

TAKING THE BASTIIE. 27

" Why, yon made the bird-lime and the twigs."

** Oh ! yes, I can make bird-lime, and I can set the
twigs, but I cannot make brass wire ; that is bonght
ready made at the grocer's."

"And how much does it cost ?"

'* Oh ! for four sous," replied Pitou, calculating upon
his fingers, " I could make at least two dozen."

**And with two dozen how many rabbits could you
catch ? "

"That is as it may happen — four, five, six, perhaps —
and they can be used over and over again if the game-
keeper does not find them."

"See, now, here are four sous," said Aunt Angelique ;
" go and buy some brass wire at Monsieur Danibrun'g, and
go to-morrow and catch rabbits."

" I will lay them to-morrow," said Pitou ; "but it will
only be the next morning that I shall know whether I have
caught any."

" Well, be it so ; but go and buy the wire."

Brass wire was cheaper at Villers-Cotterets than in the
country, seeing that the grocers at Haramont purchased
their supplies in the town ; Pitou, therefore, bought wire
enough for twenty-four snares for three sous. He took
the remaining penny back to his aunt.

This unexpected probity in her nephew almost touched
the heart of the old maid. For a moment, she had the
idea, the intention, of bestowing upon her nephew the
penny which he had not expended ; unfortunately for
Pitou, it was one that had been beaten out with a hammer,
and which, in the dusk, might be passed for a two-sous
piece. Mile. Angelique thought it would never do to dis-
possess herself of a coin by which she could make cent per
cent., and she let ib drop ag;'in into her pocket.

Pitou had remarked this hesitation, but had not analyzed
it ; he never could have imagined that his aunt would give
him a penny.

He at once set to work to make his wires.

The next day he asked his aunt for a bag.

"What for ?" inquired Mile. Angelique.

*' Because I want it," replied Pitou. Pitou was full of
mystery.

Mile. Angelique gave him the required bag, put into id
the provision of bread and cheese which was to serve for

28 TAKING THE BASTILE.

breakfast and dinner to her nephew, who set out very
early from the Bruyere-aux-Loups.

As to Aunt Angel ique, she set to work to pick the
twelve redbreasts which she had destined for her own
breakfast and dinner. She carried two thrushes to the
Abbe Fortier, and sold the remaining four to the host of
the Golden Ball, who paid her three sous apiece for them,
promising her to take as many as she would bring him at
the sarue price.

Aunt Angel ique returned liome transported with joy.
The blessing of Heaven had entered beneath her roof with
Ange Pitou.

**Ah!'' cried she, while eating her robin-redbreasts,
which were as fat as ortolans and as delicate as beccaficos,
*' people are right in saying that a good deed never goes
unrewarded."

In the evening Ange returned ; his bag, which was
magnificently rounded, he carried on his shoulders. On
this occasion Aunt Angelique did not waylay him behind
the door, but waited for him on the threshold, and instead
of giving him a box on the ear, she received the lad with
a grimace which very much resembled a smile.

" Here I am \" cried Pitou, on entering the room with
all that firmness which denotes a conviction of having well
employed one's time.

" You and your bag," said Aunt Angelique.

" I and my bag," said Pitou.

''And what have you in your bag ?" inquired Aunt
Angelique, stretching forth her hand with curiosity.

" Beech-mast," said Pilou.*

" Beech-mast ! "

''Undoubtedly. You must understand, Aunt Ange-
lique, that if old Father La Jeunesse, the gamekeeper at
the Bruyere-aux-Loups, had seen me prowling over his
grounds without my bag, he would have said to me,
'What do you come here after, you little vagabond?'

* Beecli-mast, we must inform our readers who are less ac-
quainle'l with forest terms tlian we are, is tiie fruit of tlie heecii-
tree. This fruit, of wliicli a very good sort of oil is made, is, to
tlie i>oor. a species of manna, whi(;h during the two months of
the year, falls for them from heaven.

[Dnnias slionld also have told his readers that lieech-niast is
excellent for Jjigs, and that i)heasants. and indeed most kinds of
game, are veiy fond of it. — Translator. \

TAKING THE BASTILE. 29

And this without calcnlatiugthat lie might have suspected
something ; while having my bag, were he to ask me
what I was doing there, I should say to him, ' Why, I am
come to gather mast — is it forbidden to gather mast?'
* No.' * Well, then, if it is not forbidden, yon have nothing
to say.' And, indeed, shonld he say anything, Father La
Jeunesse would be in the wrong."

"■ Then, yon have spent your whole day in gathering
mast instead of laying your wires, you idle fellow!" ex-
claimed Aunt Angeliqne, angrily, who, amid all the cun-
ning of her nephew, thought that the rabbits were escap-
ing her.

'' On the contrary, I laid my snares while gathering the
mast, so that he saw me at work at it."

" And did he say nothing to you ? "

** Oh, yes, he said to me, * You will present my compli-
ments to your aunt Pitou.' Hey ! Is not Father La
Jeunesse a kind, good man ?"

" But the rabbits ? " again repeated the old devotee,
whom nothing could divert from her fixed idea.

" The rabbits ? Why, the moon will rise at midnight,
and at one o'clock I will go and see if there are any
caught."

"Where?"

" Li the woods."

** How ! would you go into the woods at one o'clock in
the morning ? "

" To be sure."

" And without being afraid ? "

" Afraid— of what ? "

Angelique was as much astounded at Pitou's courage as
she had been astonished at his calculations.

The fact is, that Pitou, as simple as a child of nature,
knew nothing of those fictitious dangers which terrify
children born in cities.

Therefore, at midnight he went his way, walking along
the churchyard wall without once looking back. The
innocent youth who had never oifended, at least according
to his ideas of independence, either God or man, feared
not the dead more than he did the living.

There Avas only one person of whom he felt any sort of
apprehension, and this was Father La Jeunesse ; and,
therefore, did he take the precaution to go somewhat out

30 ' TAKING THE BASTILE.

of his way to pass by liis liouse. As the doors and shutters
were all closed, and there was no light to be perceived,
Pitou, iu order to assure himself that the keeper was really
at home, and not npoTi the watch, beffan to imitate the
barking of a dog, and so perfectly that Ronflot, tlie keeper's
terrier, was deceived by it, and answered it by giving
tongue with all his might, and by sniffing the air under
the floor.

From that moment Pitou was perfectly reassured ; as
Ronflot Avas at home, Father La Jeunesse must be there
also. Ronflot and Father La Jeunesse were inseparable ;
and at tlie moment the one was seen, it was certain that
the other would soon make his appearance.

Pitou, being perfectly satisfied of this fact, went on the
Bruyere-aux-Loups. The snares had done their work ;
two rabbits had been caught and strangled.

Pitou put them into the capacious pocket of that coat,
which, then too long for liim, was destined within a year
to become too short, and then returned to his aunt's
house.

The old maid had gone to bed ; but her cupidity had
kept her awake ; like Perrettc, she had been calculating
what her rabbit-skins might produce, and this calculation
had led her on so far, that she had not been able to close
her eyes • and, therefore, was it with nervous tremulation
that she asked tlie bo}'' wliat success he had had.

"'A couple," said he. '* Ah, the deuce! Aunt Ange-
lique, it is not my fault that I liave not brought more, but
it appears that Father La Jeunesse's rabbits are of a cun-
ning sort."

The hopes of Aunt Angelique were fulfilled, and even
more. She seized, trembling with joy, the two unlucky
quadrupeds aiul examined their skins, which hud remained
intact, and locked them u\) in her meat-safe, which never
had seen such provisions as those it had contained since
Pitou had hit upon the idea of supplying it.

Then, in a very honeyed tone, she advised Pitou to go to
bed, which the lad, who was much fatigued, did instantly,
and that without even sisking for his supper, which raised
him greatly in the o]>ini()n of his aunt.

Two days after this Pitou renewed his attempts, and on
this occasion was more fortunate than Ihe first. Tie
brought home three rabbits. Two of them took the road

TAKING THE BASTILE. 31

to the Golden Ball, and the third that of the presbytery.
Aunt Angelique was very attentive to the Abbe Fortier,
who, on his side, strongly recommended her to the pious
souls of the parish.

Things went on in this manner during three or four
months. Aunt Angelique was enchanted, and Pitou found
his position somewhat supportable. In fact, with the ex-
ception of the tender cares of his mother, Pitou led nearly
the same life at Villers-Cotterets which he had done at
Haramont. But an unexpected circumstance, which, how-
ever, might have been foreseen, at once dashed to the ground
the milk-pitcher of the aunt, and put a stop to the excur-
sions of the nephew.

A letter had been received from Dr. Gilbert, dated from
New York. On placing his foot on the soil of the United
States, the philosophic traveler had not forgotten his pro-
tege. He had written to Master Niguet, the notary, to
inquire whether his instructions had been carried into
effect, and to claim the execution of the agreement if they
had not been, or to cancel it altogether if the old aunt
would not abide by her engagements.

The case was a serious one ; the responsibility of the
public officer was at stake ; he presented himself at the
house of Aunt Pitou, and with the doctor's letter in his
hand, called upon her to perform the promise she had
made.

There was no backing out ; all allegations as to ill-health
were at once belied by the physical appearance of Pitou.
Pitou was tall and thin. Every standel of the forest was
also thin and tall, but this did not prevent them from being
in a perfectly healthy and thriving condition.

Mile. Angelique asked for a delay of eight days, in order
to make up lier mind as to the trade or occupation in which
she sliould place her nephew.

Pitou was quite as sorrowful as his aunt. The mode of
life he led appeared to him a very excellent one, and he did
not desire any other.

During these eight days there was no thought of going
bird-catching or poaching ; moreover, the winter liad ar-
rived, and in winter the birds find water everywhere ; but
some snow had fallen, and while that was on the ground
Pitou did not dare go out to lay liis snares. Snow retains
the impression of footsteps, and Pitou possessed a pair of

32 TAKING THE BASTILE.

feet 80 huge that they gave Father La Jeuuesse the greatest
possible chance of ascertaining in four-and-twenty hours
who was the skilful poacher who had depopulated his rabbit
warren.

During these eight days the claws of the old maid again
showed themselves. Pitou had once more found the aunt
of former days, she who had caused him so much terror —
and wliom self-interest, the primum mobile of her whole
hfe, had for awhile rendered aa smooth as velvet.

As the day for the important decision approached, the
temper of the old maid became more and more crabbed,
and to such a degree that, about the fifth day, Pitou sin-
cerely desired that his aunt would immediately decide upon
some trade, be it what it might, provided it should no lon-
ger be that of the scolded drudge which he had been filling
in the old maid's house.

Suddenly a sublime idea struck the mind of the old woman
who had been so cruelly agitated. This idea restored her
equanimity, Avhich for six days had altogether abandoned
her.

This idea consisted in entreating the Abbe Fortier to re-
ceive into his school, and this without any remuneration
whatever, poor Pitou and enable him to olDtain the purse
for entering the seminary, founded by His Highness the
Duke of Orleans. This was an apprenticeshij) wliicli would
cost nothing to Aunt Angeliquc, and M. Fortier, without
taking into calculation the thrushes, blackbirds, and rab-
bits with which the old devotee had so abundantly supplied
him for the last month, w.is bound to do something, more
than for any other, for the nephew of the chair-letter of
his own church. Thus kept as under a glass frame, Ange
would continue to be profitable to her at the present time,
and promise to be much more so in the future.

Consequently, Ange was received into the Abb6 Fortier's
school, witliout any charge for his education. This abbe
was a worthy man, and not in any way interested ; giving
his knowledge to the poor in mind, and his money to the
poor in body. He was, however, intractable on one single

Eoint ; solecisms rendered him altogether furious ; bai"-
arisms would send him almost out of his min<l ; on tliese
occasions he considered neither friends nor foes, neither
poor nor rich, nor ])ayini: puiiils, nor gratuitous scholars;
he struck ail with agrarian impartiality and with Lacedo-

TAKING THE BA8TILF. 33

monian stoicism, and as his arm was strong, he struck
severely.

This was well known to the parents, and it was for them
to decide whether they would or would not send their sons
to the Abbe Fortier's school, or if they did send them there,
they knew they must abandon them entirely to his mercy,
for when any maternal complaint was made to him, the
abbe always replied to it by this device, which he had en-
graved on the handle of his cane, and on thatof hiscat-o'-
nine-tails, '^ Who loves well chastises well."

Upon the recommendation of his aunt, Ange Pitou was,
therefore, received by the Abbe Fortier. The old devotee,
quite proud of this reception, which was much less agree-
able to Pitou, whose wandering and independent mode of
life it altogether destroyed, presented herself to Master
Niguet, and told him that she had not only conformed to
her agreement with Dr. Gilbert, but had even gone beyond
it. In fact. Dr. Gilbert had demanded for Ange Pitou an
honorable means of living, and she gave him much more
than this, since she gave him an excellent education. And
where was it that she gave him this education ? Why, in
the very academy in which Sebastian Gilbert received liis,
and for which Master Niguet, by the doctor's orders, paid
fifty iivres per month.

It was indeed true that Ange Pitou received his educa-
tion gratis ; but there was no necessity whatever for letting
Dr. Gilbert into this secret. The impartiality and the
disinterestedness of the Abbe Fortier were well known ; as
His sublime master, he stretched out his arms, saying,
** Suffer little children to come unto me ;" only the two
hands affixed to these two paternal arms were armed, the
one with a rudiment, and the other with a large bircli rod ;
so that in the greater number of instances, instead of re-
ceiving the children weeping and sending them away con-
soled, the-Abbe Fortier saw the children approach him with
terror in their countenances and sent them away weep-
ing.

The new scholar made his entrance into the schoolroom,
with an old trunk under liis arm, a horn inkstand in his
hand, and two or three stumps of pens stuck behind his
ears. The old trunk was intended to supply, as it best
might, the absence of a regular desk. The inkstand was a
gift from the grocer, and Mile. Angeliqiie had picked up

34 TAKING THE BASTILE.

the stumps of pens at M. Niguet, the notary's, when she
had paid him a visit the evening before.

Ange Pitou was welcomed with that fraternal gentleness
which is born in children and perpetuated in grown men,
that is to say, with hootiugs. The whole time devoted to
the morning class was passed in making game of him.
Two of the scholars were kept for laughing at his yellow
hair, and two others for ridiculing his marvelous knees, of
which we have already slightly made mention. The latter
had said that Pi ton's legs looked like a well-rope in which
a knot had been tied. This jest was attended with great
success, had gone round the room, and excited general
hilarity, and consequently the susceptibility of the Abbe
Fortier.

Therefore, the account being made up at noon when
about to leave the school, that is to say, after having re-
mained four hours in class, Pitou, without having ad-
dressed a single word to any one, without having done any-
thing but gape behind his trunk, Pitou had made six
enemies in the school ; six enemies, so much the more
inveterate that he had not inflicted any wrong upon them,
and, therefore, did they over the fire-stove, which in the
schoolroom represented the altar of their country, swear
a solemn oath, some to tear out his yellow hair, others to
punch out his earthenware blue eyes, and the remainder
to straighten his crooked knees.

Pitou was altogether ignorant of these hostile inten-
tions. As he was going out he asked a boy near him why
six of their comrades remained in school, when all the rest
were leaving it.

The boy looked askance at Pitou, called him a shabby
tale-bearer, and went away, unwillirjg to enter into con-
versation with him.

Pitou asked himself how it could have happened that
he, not having uttered a single word during the whole
time, could be called a shabby tale-bearer. But while the
class had lasted he had heard so many things said, either
by the pupils or by the Abbe Fortier, which he could
in no way comprehend, that he classed this accusation of
his schoolfellow with those things which were too elevated
for him to understand.

On seeing Pitou return at noon. Aunt Angelique, with
great ardor for the success of au education for which it

TAKING THE BASTILF, 35

was generally nnderstood she made great sacrifices, inquired
of him what he had learned.

Pitou replied tliat he had learned to remain silent. The
answer was worthy of a Pythagorean ; only a Pythagorean
would have made it by a sign.

The new scholar returned to school at one o'clock, with-
out too much repugnance. The hours of study in the
morning had been passed by the pupils in examining the
physical appearance of Pitou ; those of the afternoon wore
employed by the professor in examining his moral capa-
bilities. This examination being made, the Abbe Fortier
remained convinced that Pitou had every possible disposi-
tion to become a Robinson Crusoe, but very little chance
of ever becoming a Fontenelle or a Bossuet.

During the whole time that the class lasted, and which
was- much more fatiguing to the future seminarist than
that of the morning, the scholars who had been punished
on account of him repeatedly held up their fists to him.
In all countries, Avliether blessed with civilization or not,
this demonstration is considered as a sign of threat.
Pitou, therefore, determined to be on his guard.

Our hero was not mistaken ; on leaving, or, rather, when
he had left, and got clear away from all the dependen-
cies of the collegiate house, it was notified to Pitou by the
six scholars, who had been kept in the morning, that he
would have to pay for the two hours of arbitrary deten-
tion, with damages, interest and capital.

Pitou at once understood that he would have to fight a
pugilistic duel. Although he was far from having studied
the sixth book of the JEneid, in which young Dares and
the old Entellus give proofs of their great skill in this
manly exercise before the loudly applauding Trojan fugi-
tives, he knew something of this species of recreation, to
which the country people in his village were not alto-
gether strangers. He, therefore, declared that he was ready
to enter the lists with either of his adversaries who might
wish to begin, and to combat, successively, with all his
six enemies. This demonstration began to raise the last
comer in the consideration of his schoolfellows.

The conditions were agreed on as Pitou had proposed.
A circle was soon formed round the place of combat, and
the champiors, the one having thrown off his jacket, the
other his coat, advanced toward each other.

86 TAKING THE BASTILE.

We have alreucly spoken of Pitou's hands. These hands,
which were by no means agreeable to look at, were still less
agreeable to feel. Pitou at the end of each arm whirled
round a list equal in size to a child's head, and although box-
ing had not at that time been introduced iu France, and
cousecjuontly Pitou had not studied the elementary princi-
ples of the science, he managed to apply to one of the eyes
of his adversary a blow so hermetically directed, that the
eye he struck was instantly surrounded by a dark, bistre-
colored circle, so geometrically drawn that the most skilful
mathematician could not have formed it more correctly
with his compiisscs.

The second then presented himself. If Pitou had
against him the fatigue occasioned by his first combat, on
the other side, his adversary was visibly less powerful than
his former antagonist. The battle did not last long.
Pitou gave a straightforward blow at his enemy's nose, and
his formidable fist fell with such weight, that instantly
his two nostrils gave evidence of the validity of the blow
by spouting forth a double stream of blood.

The third got ofif with merely a broken tooth ; he re-
ceived much less damage than the two former. The other
three declared that they were satisfied.

Pitou then pressed through the crowd, which drew back
as he approached with the respect due to a conqueror,
and he withdrew, safe and sound, to his own fireside, or,
rather, to that of his aunt.

The next morning, when the three pupils reached the
school, the one with his eye poached, the second with a
fearfully lacerated nose, and the third with his lips swelled,
the Abbe Fortier instituted an inquiry. But young col-
legians have their good points, too. Not one of the wound-
ed whispered a word against Pitou, and it was only through
an indirect channel, that is to say, from a person who had
been a witness of the fight, but who was altogether un-
connected with the school, that tlie Abbe Fortier learned,
the following day, that it was Pitou wiio had done tiie
damage to the faces of his pupils, which had caused him
80 much uneasiness the day before.

And, in fact, the Abbe Fortier was responsible to the
parents, not only for the morals, but for the pliysical sbite
of his ])upils. Fortier had received oom])laims from the
three families. A reparation was absolutely necessary.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 37

Pitou was kept in school three days ; one day for the eye,
one day for the bloody nose, and one day for the tooth.

This three days' detention suggested an ingenious idea
to Mile. Angelique. It was to deprive Pitou of his dinner
every time that the Abbe Fortier kept him in school.
Tliis determination must necessarily have an advantageous
effect on Pitou's education, since it would naturally induce
him to think twice before committing a fault which would
subject him to this double punishment.

Only, Pitou could never rightly comprehend why it was
that he had been called a tale-bearer, when he had not
opened his lips, and why it was he had been punished for
beating those who had wished to beat him ; but if people
were to comprehend everything that happens in this world,
they would lose one of the principal charms of life — that
of mystery and the unforeseen.

Pitou was, therefore, detained three days in school, and
during those three days, he contented himself with his
breakfast and supper.

Contented himself is not the word, for Pitou was by no
means content ; but our language is so poor, and the
academy so severe, that we must content ourselves with
what we have.

Only that this punishment submitted to by Pitou, with-
out saying a word of the aggression to which he had been
subjected, and to which he had only properly replied, won
him the esteem of the whole school. It is true that the
three majestic blows he had been seen to deliver might also
have had some little influence on his schoolfellows.

From that forward the life of Pitou was pretty nearly
that of most scholars, with this sole difference, that from
his compositions being more defective than those of any
of the rest, he was kept twice as often as any of his co-
disciples.

But, it must be said, there was one thing in Pitou's
nature which arose from the primary education he received,
or, rather, from that which he did not receive, a thing
which is necessary to consider as contributing at least a
third to the numerous keepings he underwent, and this
was his natural inclination for animals.

The famous trunk which his aunt Angelique had digni-
lied with the name of desk had become, thanks to its vast-
aiess, and the numerous compartments, with which Pitou

38 TAKING THE BASTILE.

had decorated its interior, a sort of Noah's ark, containing
a couple of every species of climbing, crawling, or flying
reptiles. There were lizards, adders, ant-eaters, beetles,
and frogs, which reptiles became so much dearer to Pitou
from their being the cause of his being subjected to pun-
ishment more or less severe.

It was in his walks during the week that Pitou made
collections for his menagerie. He had wished for sala-
manders, which were very popular at Yillers-Cottcrets,
being the crest of Francois I., and who had had them sculp-
tured on every chimney-piece in the chateau. lie had suc-
ceeded in obtaining them ; only one thing had strongly pre-
occupied his mind, and lie ended by placing this thing
among the number of those which were beyond his intel-
ligence : it was that he had constantly found in the water
these reptiles which poets have pretended exist only in
fire. This circumstance had given to Pitou, who was a
lad of precise mind, a profound contempt for poets.

Pitou being the proprietor of two salamanders, set to
work to find a chameleon ; but this time his search was
altogether vain, and success did not attend his labors.
Pitou at last concluded, from these unfruitful researches,
that the chameleon did not exist, or, at all events, that it
existed in some other latitude.

This point being settled, Pitou did not obstinately con-
tinue his search for the chameleon.

The two other thirds of Pitou's _keepings-in were occa-
sioned by those accursed solecisms, 'and those confounded
barbarisms, which sprung up in the themes written by
Pitou, as tares do in a field of wheat.

As to Sundays and Thursdays, days when there was no
attendance at school, he had co'ntinued to employ them i)i
laying his lime-twigs or in poaching ; only, as Pitou was
still growing taller, as he was already five feet six, and
sixteen years of age, a circumstance occurred which some-
what withdrew Pitou's attention from his favorite occupa-
tions.

Upon the road to the "Wolf's Heath is situated a small
village, the same, perhaps, which gave a name to the
beautiful Anne d'lleill}^ tlio mistress of Francois I.

Near this village stood the farmhouse of Father Billot,
as he wag called throughout the neighborhood, and at the
door of this farm house was standing, no doubt by chance,

TAKING THE BASTILE. 39

but almost every time when Pitou passed and repassed, a
pretty girl from seventeen to eighteen years of age, fresh-
colored, lively, jovial, and who was called by her baptismal
name, Catherine, bat still more frequently after her
father's name. La Billote.

Pitou began by bowing to La Billote ; afterward, he, by
degrees, became emboldened, and smiled while he was bow-
ing ; then at last, one line day, after having bowed, after
having smiled, he stopped and although blushing deeply,
ventured to stammer out the following words, which he
considered as a great audacity on his part :

" Good-day, Mademoiselle Catherine."

Catherine was a good, kind-hearted girl, and she wel-
comed Pitou as an old acquaintance. He was, in point of
fact, an old acquaintance, for during two or three years
she had seen him passing and repassing before the farm
gate at least once a week. Only that Catherine saw Pitou,
and Pitou did not see Catherine. The reason was that at
first, when Pitou used to pass by the farm in this manner,
Catherine was sixteen years old, and Pitou but fourteen.
We have just seen what happened when Pitou, in his turn,
had attained his sixteenth year.

By degrees Catherine had learned to appreciate the
talents of Pitou, for Pitou had given her evidence of his
talents by offering to her his finest birds and his fattest
rabbits. The result of this was that Catherine compli-
mented him upon these talents, and that Pitou, who was
the more sensible to compliments from his being so little
habituated to receiving them, allowed the charm of novelty
to influence him, and instead of going on straightforward,
as heretofore, to the Wolf's Heath, he would stop half-
way, and instead of employing the whole of his day in
picking up beech-mast and in laying his wires, he would
lose his tiuie in prowling round Father Billot's farm, in
the hope of seeing Catherine, were it only for a moment.

The result of this was a very sensible diminution in the
produce of rabbit-skins, and a complete scarcity of robin-
redbreasts and thrushes.

Aunt Angclique complained of this. Pitou represented
to her that the rabbits had become mistrustful, and that
the birds, who had found out the secret of his lime-twigs,
now drank out of hollows of trees, or out of leaves that
retained the water.

40 TAKING THE BASTILE.

There was one consideration wliich consoled Aunt
Angelique for this increase in the intelligence of tlie rab-
bits ami the cunning of the birds, which she attributed to
the progress of philosophy, and this was that her nephew
would obtain the purse, enter the seminary, pass three
years there, and on leaving it would be an ablje. Now,
being liousekeeper to an abbe had been the constant aim
of Mile. Angelique's ambition.

This ambition could not fail of being gratified, for Ange
Pitou, having once become an abbe, could not do other-
wise than take his aunt for housekeeper, and, above all,
after what his aunt had done for him.

The only thing which disturbed the golden dreams of
the old maid was, when speaking of this hope to the Abbe
Fortier, the latter replied, shaking his head :

" My dear Demoiselle Pitou, in order to become an abbe
your nephew should give himself up less to the study of
natural history, and much more to *De virus illustribus,*
or to the * Selects e profanis scriptoribus.' "

*' And which means ? " said Mile. Angelique, inquir-
ingly.

"That he makes too many barbarisms, and infinitely
too many solecisms,^' replied the Abbe Fortier.

An answer which left ]\rile. Angelique in the most
afflicting state of vagueness and uncertainty.

CHAPTER IV.

These details were indispensable to the reader, what-
ever be the degree of intelligence we suppose him to pos-
sess, in order that he might comprehend the whole horror
of the position in which Pitou found himself on being
finally expelled from the school.

With one arm hanging down, the other maintaining the
equilibrium of the trunk upon his head, his ears still ring-
ing with the furious vituperations of the Abbe Fortier, he
slowly directed his steps towards the Pleux, in a state of
meditation which was nothing more than stupor carried to
the highest possible degree.

At last an idea presented itself to liis imagination, and
four words, which composed his whole thought, escaped
his lips :

TAKING THE BASTILE. 41

" Oh, Lord, my aunt ! "

Aud indeed what would Mile. Angelique Pitou say to
this complete overthrow of all her hopes ?

However, Ange Pitou knew nothing of the projects of the
old maid, excepting as a faithful dog surmises the intentions
of his master — that is to say, by an inspection of his
physiognomy. Instinct is a most valuable guide, it seldom
deceives ; while reasou, ou the contrary, may be led astray
by the imagination.

The result of these reflections on the part of Ange
Pitou, and which had given birth to the doleful exclama-
tion we have given above, was the apprehension of the
violent outbreak of discontent the old maid would give
way to on receiving the fatal news. Now, he knew from
sad experience the result of discontent in Mile. Angelique.
Only, upon this occasion the cause of discontent, arising
from an incalculably important event, the result would
attain a degree altogether incalculable.

It was under these terrific impressions that Pitou entered
the Pleux. He had taken a quarter of an hour to traverse
the distance between the great gate at the Abbe Fortier's
and the entrance to this street, and yet it was scarcely
three hundred yards.

At that moment the church clock struck twelve ; lie
then perceived that his final conversation with the Abbe
Fortier and tlie slowness with which he had v/alked, had
delayed him in all sixty minutes, and that, consequently,
he was half an hour later than the time at which no more
dinner was to be had in Aunt Angelique's abode.

We have already said that such was the salutary re-
straint which Aunt Angelique had added to his being kept
in school, and on the wild rumblings of her nephew ; it
was thus that in the course of a year she managed to
economize some sixty dinners at the expense of her poor
nephew's stomach.

But this time that which rendered more uneasy the
retarded schoolboy was not the loss of his aunt's meager
dinner, although his breakfast had been meager enough,
for his heart was too full to allow huu to perceive tho
emptiness of his stomach.

There is a frightful torment, well known to a student,
however perverse he may be, and this is the illegitimate
hiding in some retired corner, after being expelled from

42 TAKING THE BASTILE.

college ; it is the definitive and compelled holiday which
he is constrained to take advantage of, while his fellow-
students pass by him with their books and writings under
their arm, proceeding to their daily task. That college,
formerly so hated, then assumes a most desirable form ;
the scholar occupies his mind with the great affairs of
themes and exercises to which he before so little directed
his attention, and which are being proceeded with in his
absence. There is a strong similiarity between a pupil so
expelled by his professor and a man who has been excom-
municated by the church for his impiety, and who no
lon,c(cr has a right to enter one, although burning with
desire to hear a mass.

And this was why the nearer he approached his aunt's
house, his residence in that house appeared the more
frightful to poor Pitou. And this was why, for the first
time in his life, his imagination pictured to him the school
as a terrestrial paradise, from which the Abbe Fortier,
as the exterminating angel, had driven him forth, with
his cat-o'-nine-tails wielded as a flaming sword.

But yet, slowly as he walked, and although he halted at
every ten steps he took — halts which became still longer
as he ai^proached nearer — he could not avoid at last reach-
ing the threshold of that most formidable house. Pitou
then reached the threshold with shuffling feet, and me-
chanically rubbing his hand on the seam of his nether
garment.

*' Ah ! Aunt Angelique, I am really very sick," said he,
in order to stop her raillery or her reproaches,and perhaps
also to induce her to jiity him, poor boy !

*'Good!" said Angelique. "I well know what your
sickness is ; and it would be cured at once by putting back
the hands of the clock an hour and a half."

" Oh ! good heavens, no I" cried Pitou ; " for 1 am not
hungry."

Aunt Angelique was surprised and almost anxious.
Sickness equally alarms affectionate mothers and crabbed
stepmothers — affectionate mothers, from the dangers
caused by sickness ; and stepmothers from the heavy pulls
it makes upon their purse.

'* Well, what is tlie matter ? Come, now, speak out at
once," said the old maid.

On hearing these words, which were, however, i)ro'

TAKIN(i THE BASTILE. ' 43

nounced without any very tender sympathy, Ange Pitou
burst into tears ; and it must be acknowledged that the
wry faces he made when proceeding from complaints to
tears were the most terrifically ugly wry faces that could
be seen.

^' Oh ! my good aunt," cried he, sobbing, '' a great mis-
fortune has happened to me."

" And what is it ? " asked the old maid.

" The Abbe Fortier has sent me away," replied Ange,
sobbing so violently that he was scarcely intelligible.

*' Sent you away *? " repeated Mile. Angelique, as if she
had not perfectly comprehended what he said.

" Yes, aunt."

" And from where has he sent you ? "

*'From the school."

And Pitou's sobs redoubled.

" From the school ? "

"Yes, aunt."

*' What ! altogether ? "

**Yes, aunt."

*' So there is no longer any examination, no competition,
no purse, no seminary ? "

Pitou's sobs were cliauged into perfect bowlings.

Mile. Angelique looked at him, as if she would read the
very heart of her nephew, to ascertain the cause of his
dismissal.

" I will wager that you have again been among the
bushes, instead of going to school. I would wager that
you have again been prowling about Father Billot's farm.
Oh, fy ! and a future abbe !"

Ange shook his liead.

" You are lying !" cried the old maid, whoso anger aug-
mented in proportion as she acquired the certainty that
the state of matters was very serious. *'You are lying.
Only last Sunday you were seen again in the Hall of
Sighs, with La Billote."

It was Mile. Angelique who was lying. But devotees
have, in all ages, considered themselves authorized to lie, in
virtue of that Jesuitical axiom, " It is permitted to assert
that which is false, in order to discover that which is true."

'^Xo one could have seen me in the Hall of Sighs," re
plied Pitou ; " that is impossible, for we were walking
near the orangerj^."

44 TAKING THE BASTILE.

** Ah, wretch ! you see that you were with her.**

''But, auut," rejoined Pitou, blushing, "Mademoiselle
Billot has nothing to do with this question."

" Yes, call her mademoiselle, in order to conceal your
impure conduct. But I will let this minx's confessor know
all about it."

" But, aunt, I swear to you that Mademoiselle Billot is
not a minx."

''Ah ! you defend her, when it is you that stand in need
of being excused. Oh, yes ; you understand eacli other
better and better. What are we coming to, good Heaven !
and children only sixteen years old ! "

" Aunt, so far from tliere being any understanding be-
tween me and Catherine, it is Catherine who always drives
me away from her."

" Ah ! you see you are cutting your own throat ; for
now you call her Catherine right out. Yes, she drives yon
away from her, hypocrite, when people are looking at
you."

" Ho ! ho ! " said Pitou to himself, illuminated by this
idea. " Well, that is true. I had never thought of
that."

" Ah, there again ! " said the okl maid, taking advantage
of the ingenuous exclamation of her nephew, to prove his
connivance with La Billote ; " but let me manage it. I
I will soon put all this to rights again. Monsieur Fortier
is her confessor. I will beg him to have you shut up in
prison, and order you to live on bread and water for a
fortnight ; and, as to Mademoiselle Catherine, if she re-
quires a convent to moderate her passion for you, well, she
shall have a taste of it. We will send her to St. Eemy."

The old maid uttered these last words with such au-
thority and with such conviction of her power that they
made Pitou tremble.

" My good aunt," cried he, clasping his hands, "you
are mistaken, I swear to you, if you believe that Madetnui-
selle Billot has anything to do with the misfortune that
has befallen me."

*' Impurity is the mother of all vices," seutentiously
rejoined Mile. Angelique.

" Annt, I again tell you that the Abbe Fortier did not
send me away because I was impure ; but he has dismissed
me because I make too many barbarisms, mingled with

TAKING THE BASTILE. 45

Bolecisms, which every now and then escape me, and which
deprive me, as he says, of all chance of obtaining the
purse for the seminary."

** All chance, say you ? Then you will not have that
purse ; then you will not be abbe ; then I shall not be
your housekeeper ! "

" Ah, good Heaven, no, dear aunt ! "

*' And what is to become of you, then ?" cried the old
maid, in a savage tone.

'* I know not \" cried Pitou, piteously, raising his eyes
to heaven. ** Whatever it my please Providence to order,"
he added.

** Ah ! Providence, you say ! I see how it is," exclaimed
Mile. Angelique. " Some one has been exciting his brain ;
some one has been talking to him of these new ideas ;
some one has been endeavoring to fill him with these prin-
ciples of philosophy."

*' It cannot be that, aunt ; because no one gets into
philosophy before having gone through his rhetoric ; and
I have never yet been able to get even so far as that."

*' Oh, yes — jest ! — jest ! It is not of that philosophy
that I am sj^eaking, I speak of the philosophy , of the
philosophers, you wretch ! I speak of the philosophy of
Monsieur Arouet ; I speak of the philosophy of Monsieur
Jean Jacques ; of the philosophy of Monsieur Diderot, who
wrote *La Eeligieuse.' "

Mile. Angelique crossed herself.

"*La Religieuse ! ' ^' cried Pitou; *'what is that,
aunt?"

*' You have read it, wretch ! "

" I swear to you, aunt, that I have not."

" And this is the reason why you will not go into the
church."

*' Aunt, aunt, you are mistaken. It is the church that
will not admit me."

" Why, decidedly, this child is a perfect serpent. He
even dares to reply."

" No, aunt ; I answer, and that is all."

" Oh ! he is lost ! " exclaimed Mile. Angelique, with all
the signs of the most profound discouragement, and fall-
ing into her favorite armchair.

In fact, ** He is lost ! " merely signified, " I am lost ! "

The danger was imminent ; Aunt Angelique formed an

46 TAKING THE BASTILE.

xtreme resolve. She rose as if some secret spring had
forced lier to her feet, and ran off to the Abbe Fortier, to
ask him for an exphmation, and above all to make a last
effort to get him to change his determination.

Pitou followed his aunt with his eyes, till she had
reached the door ; and when she had disappeared, he went
to the threshold and watched her walking with extraor-
dinary rapidity toward the Rue de Soissous. He was sur-
prised at the quickness of her movements ; but he had no
longer any doubt as to the intentions of Mile. Angolique,
but was convinced that she was going to his professor's
house.

He could, therefore, calculate on at least a quarter of an
hour's tranquillity. Pitou thought of making a good use
of this quarter of an hour which Providence had granted
him. He snatched up the remainder of his aunt's dinner
to feed his lizards, caugiit two or three flies for his ants
and frogs ; then, opening successively a hutch and a cup-
board, he set about feeding himself, for with solitude his
appetite had returned to him.

Having arranged all these-matters, he returned to watch
at the door, that he might not be surprised by the return
of his second mother.

AVliile he was watching, a handsome young girl passed
at the end of the Pleux, going along a narrow lane which
led from the end of the Rue de Soissons to that of the Rue
de I'Ormet. She was seated on a pillion on the back of a
horse loaded with two paniers ; the one full of fowls, the
other of pigeons. It was Catherine. On perceiving Pitou
standing at his door, she stopped.

Pitou, according to custom, blushed, then remained
with his mouth wide open, looking at, that is to say, ad-
miring, for Mile. Billot was in his eyes the most heavenly
sample of human l^eauty.

The young girl darted a glance into the street, saluted
Pitou with a little graceful nod, and continued on lier
way.

Pitou replied to it, trembling with satisfaction.

This little scene lasted "just time enough to occupy the
tall scholar's attention, who was quite lost in his contem-
plation, and continued eagerly gazing at the spot where
Mile. Catherine had appeared, so as to prevent him from
perceiving his aunt wlien she returned from the Abb6

TAKING THE BASTILE. ■ 47

Fortier, who suddenly seized his hand, turning pale with

auger.

Ange, being thns startlingly awakened from his sweet
dream by that electrical shock which the touch of Mile.
Angelique always communicated to him, turned round,
and seeing that the enraged looks of his aunt were fixed
upon his hand, cast his own eyes down upon it, and saw
with horror that it was holding the half of a large round
of bread upon which he had apparently spread a too gener-
ous layer of butter, with a corresponding slice of cheese,
and which the sudden appearance of Mile. Catherine had
made him entirely forget.

Mile. Angelique uttered a cry of terror, and Pitou a
groan of alarm ; Angelique raised her bony hand, Pitou
bobbed down his head ; Angelique seized a broom-handle
which unluckily was but too near her, Pitou let fall his
slice of bread and butter, and took to his heels without
further explanation.

These two hearts liad understood each other, and had
felt that henceforth there could be no communion between
them.

Mile. Angelique went into her house and double-locked
the door. Pitou, whom the grating noise alarmed as a
continuation of the storm, ran on still faster.

From this scene resulted an effect which Mile. Ange-
lique was very far from foreseeing, and which certainly
Pitou in no way expected.

CHAPTER V.

Pitou ran as if all the demons of the infernal regions
were at his heels, and in a few seconds he was outside the
town.

On turning round the corner of the cemetery he very
nearly ran his head against the hind part of a horse.

" Why, good Lord ! " cried a sweet voice, well known to
Pitou, *' where are you running to at this rate. Monsieur
Ange ? You have very nearly made Cadet run av/ay with
me, you frightened us so much."

" Ah ! Mademoiselle Catherine," cried Pitou, replying
rather to his own thoughts than to the question of the

48 TAKING THE BASTILE.

yonng girl. ** Ali ! Mademoiselle Catherine, what a mis-
fortune ! Great God ! what a misfortune ! "

" Oh I you quite terrify me I " said tiie young girl, pull-
ing up her horse in the middle of the road. **T\'hat,
then, hiis happened, Monsieur Ange?"

" What has happened ?" said Pitou, and then lowering
his voice, as if about to reveal some mysterious iniquity,
*' why it is that I am not to be an abbe, mademoiselle."

But instead of receiving the fatal intelligence with all
those signs of commiseration which Pitou had expected.
Mile. Billot gave way to a long burst of laughter.

" You are not to be an abbe ? " asked Catherine.

*' Xo," replied Pitou, in perfect consternation, " it ap-
pears that it is impossible."

" Well, then, you can be a soldier," said Catherine.

" A soldier ? "

*' Undoubtedly. You should not be in such despair for
such a trifle. Good Lord ! I had first thought you had
come to announce to me the death of your aunt."

" Oh I" said Pitou, feelingly, *' it is precisely the same
thing to me as if she were dead indeed, since slie has driven
me out of her house."

•' I beg your pardon," said Catherine, laughing ; '*' you
have not now the satisfaction of weeping for her.

And Catherine began to laugh more heartily than be-
fore, which scandalized poor Pitou more than ever.

" But did you not hear tluit I was turned out-of-doors ? "
rejoined the student, in despair.

" Well, so much the better," she replied.

" You are very happy in being able to laugli in that
manner. Mademoiselle Billot, and it proves that you have
a most agreeable disposition, since the sorrows of others
make so little impression upon you."

*' And who has told you, then, that should a real mis-
fortune happen to you, that I would not pity you. Mon-
sieur Ange ?"

" You would pity me if a real misfortune should befall
me. But do you not, then, know that I have no other
resource ? "

"So much the better again !" cried Cathorii\e.

" But one must eat," said ho ; " one cannot live without
eating, and I, above all, for I am alwavs hungry."

** You do not wish to work, then, j\fonsieur Pitou ? '"'

TAKING THE BASTILE. 49

** Work, and at what ? Monsieur Fortier and my Aunt
Angelique have told me more than a hundred times that I
was fit for nothing. Ah I if they had only apprenticed me
to a carpenter or a blacksmith, instead of wanting to make
an abbe of me. Decidedly now, Mademoiselle Catherine,"
said Pitou, with a gesture of despair ; ** decidedly there is
a curse upon me/'

''Alas ! " said the young girl, compassionately, for she
knew, as did all the neighborhood, Pitou's lamentable
story. " There is some truth in what you have just now
said, my dear Monsieur Ange ; but why do you not do one
thing ?■"

*'What is it?" cried Pitou, eagerly clinging to the
proposal which Mile. Billot was about to make, as a drown-
ing man clings to a willow branch. *'What is it, tell
me ? "

" You had a protector ; at least, I think I have heard
so."

''Doctor Gilbert."

" You were the schoolfellow of his son, since he was
educated, as you have been, by the Abbe Fortier."

" I believe I was, indeed, and I have more than once
saved him from being thrashed."

" Well, then, why do you not write to his father ? He
will not abandon you."

" Why, I would certainly do so, did I know what had
become of him : but your father, perhaps, knows this,
Mademoiselle Billot, since Doctor Gilbert is his landlord."

" I know that he sends part of the produce of the farm
to him in America, and pays the remainder to a notary at
Paris."

" Ah ! " said Pitou, sighing, "in America ; that is very
far."

" You would go to America ? You ? " cried the young
girl, terrified at Pitou's resolution.

" Who, I, Mademoiselle Catherine? Never, iiever ! If I
knew where to go, and how to procure food, I should be
very happy in France."

" Very happy," repeated Mile. Billot.

Pitou cast down his eyes. The young girl remained
silent. The silence lasted some time. Pitou was plunged
in meditations which would have greatly sur^jrised the
Abbe Fortier, with all his logic.

3 — Dumas— Vol. IX,

50 TAKING THE BASTILE.

These meditations, thongli rising from an obscure point,
had become hicid ; then they again became confused,
though brilliant, like the lightning, whose origin is con-
cealed, whose source is lost.

During this time, Cadet had again moved on, though at
a walk, and Pitou walked at Cadet's side, with one hand
leauihg on one of the paniers. As to Mile. Catherine, who
had also become full of thought, she allowed her reins to
fall upon her courser's neck, without fearing that he would
run away with her. Moreover, there were no monsters on
the road, and Cadet was of a race which had no sort of
relation to the steeds of Hippolytus.

Pitou stopped mechanically when the horse stopped.
They had arrived at the farm.

*' "Well, now, is it you, Pitou ? " cried a broad-shouldered
man, standing somewhat proudly by the side of a pond, to
which he had led his horse to drink.

**Eh ! good Lord ! Yes, Monsieur Billot, it is myself."

"Another misfortune has befallen this poor Pitou,''
said the )''Oung girl, jumping off her horse, M-ithout feeling
at all uneasy as to whether her petticoat hitched or not, to
show the color of her garters ; " his aunt has turned him
out-of-doors."

" And what has he done to the old bigot ? " said the
farmer.

" It appears that I am not strong enough in Greek."

He was boasting, the puppy ; he ought to have said in
Latin.

"Not strong enough in Greek ?" exclaimed the broad-
shouldered man ; "and why should you- wish to be strong
in Greek?"

" To construe Theocritus, and read the ' Iliad.'"

" And of what use would it be to you to construe The-
ocritus, and re:id the * Iliad ? ' "

" It would be of use in making me an abbe."

"Bah !" ejaculated M. Billot, "and do I know the
Greek ? do I know Latin ? do I know even Frencli ? do I
know how to read ? do I know how to write ? That does
not hinder me from sowing, from reaping, and getting my
harvest into the granary."

" Yes, but you. Monsieur Billot, you are not an abb6,
you are a cultivator of the earth, agricola, as Virgil says,
0 fortunatos nimium "

TAKING THE BASTILE. 51

'* Well, and do yon then believe tluit a cultivator is not
equal to a black- cap ? Say, then, you shabby chorister
you, is he not so, particularly when this cultivator has
sixty acres of good land in the sunshine and a thousand
louis in the shade."

** I had been always told that to be an abbe was the best
thing in the world. It is true/' added Piton, smiling with
his most agreeable smile, " that I did not alwa3^s listen to
what was told me.'^

"And I give you joy, my boy. You see that I can
rhyme like any one else when I set to work. It appears
to me that there is stuff in you to make something better
than an abbe, and that it is a lucky thing for you not to
take that trade, particularly as times now go. Do you see
now, as a farmer I know something of the weather, and
the weather just now is bad for abbes ? "

*' Bah ! " exclaimed Pitou.

" Yes, we shall have a storm," rejoined the farmer, " and
not long first, believe me. You are honest, you are
learned "

Pitou bowed, much honored at being called learned, for
the first time in his life.

"You can, therefore, gain a livelihood without that."

Mile. Billot, while taking the fowls and pigeons out of
the paniers, was listening with much interest to the dia-
logue between Pitou and her father.

" Gain a livelihood," rejoined Pitou; "that appears a
difficult matter to me."

" What can you do ?"

" Do ! why, I can lay lime-twigs and can set wires for
rabbits. I can imitate, and tolerably well, the notes of
birds, can I not. Mademoiselle Catherine ? "

"Oil, that is true enough," she replied; "he can
whistle like a blackbiixl,"

"Yes; but all this is not a trade, a profession," ob-
served Father Billot.

"' And that is what I say, by Heaven ! "

" You swear ; that is already something."

" How, did I swear ?" said Pitou ; " I beg your pardon
for having done so, Monsieur Billot."

" Oh I there is no occasion, none at all," said the
farmer ; " it happens also to me sometimes. Eh ! thunder
of heaven I" cried he, turning to his horse, " will you be

62 ■ TAKING THE BASTILE.

quiet, hey ? these devils of Perch horses, they must be al-
\fays neighing and fidgeting about. But now, tell me/*
said he, again addressing Pitou, "are you lazy ?"

" I do not know ; I have never done anything but Latin
and Greek, and "

"And what ?''

" And I must admit that I did not take to them very
readily."

'•' So much the better." cried Billot ; "that proves you
are not so stupid as I thought you."

Pitou opened his eyes to an almost terrific width ; it was
the first time he had ever heard such an order of things
advocated, and which was con^pletely subversive of all the
theories which up to that time he had been taught.

" 1 ask you," said Billot, " if you are so lazy as to be
afraid of fatigue."

''Oh! with regard to fatigue, that is quite another
thing," replied Pitou ; " no, no, no ; I could go ten
leagues without being fatigued."

" Good ! that's something, at all events," rejoined Billot.
" By getting a few pounds of flesh more off your bones,
you could set up for a runner."

"A few pounds more I" cried Pitou, looking at his own
lanky form, his long arms and his legs, which had much
the appearance of stilts ; " it seems to me. Monsieur Billot,
that I ain thin enough as it is."

"Upon my 'word, my friend," cried Billot, laughing
very heartily, " you are a perfect treasure."

It was the first time that Pitou had been estimated at so
high a price, and therefore was he advancing from surprise
to sur{)rise.

" Listen to me," said the farmer ; " I ask you whether
you are lazy in respect to work ?"

" What sort of work ?"

"Why, work in general."

" I do not know, not I ; for I have never worked."

Catherine also began to laugh, but this time Pere Billot
took the matter in a serious point of view.

" Those rascally priests ! " said he, holding his clinched
fists toward the town, " ami this is the way they bring up
lads, in idleness and uselessness. In what way, I ask you,
can this great stripling here be of service to liis brethren ? "

" Ah ! not of much use, certainly ; tliat I know full

TAKING THE BASTILE. 53

well,'* replied Pitou. *' Fortunately, I have no broth-

ers."

" By brethren I mean all men in general/' observed
Billot. " Would you, perchance, insist that all men are
not brothers ? "

" Oh, that I acknowledge ; moreover, it is so said in the
Gospel."

" And equals," continued the farmer.

*' Ah ! as to that," said Pitou, ''that is quite another
affair. If I had been the equal of Monsieur Fortier, he
would not so often have thrashed me with his cat-o'-nine-
tails and his cane ; and if I had been the equal of my aunt,
she would not have turned me out-of-doors."

" I tell you that all men are equal," rejoined the farmer,
** and we will very soon prove it to the tyrants."

" Tyrcmnis," added Pitou.

**And the proof of this is, that I will take you into my
house."

" You will take me into your house, my dear Monsieur
Billot ! " cried Pitou, amazed. " Is it not to make game
of me that you say this ? "

" No. Come now, tell me, what would you require to
live?"

" Bread."

'' And with your bread ? "

*' A little butter or cheese."

" "Well, well," said the farmer, '•' I see it will not be very
expensive to keep you in food. My lad, you shall be fed."

" Monsieur Pitou," said Catherine, " had you not
something to ask my fatlier ? "

*' Who ? I, mademoiselle ? Oh, good Lord, no !"

''' And why was it that you came liere, then ? "

'* Because you were coming liere."

*' Ah ! " cried Catherine, " that is really very gallant ;
but I accept compliments only at their true value. You
came, Mousieur Pitou, to ask my father if he had any
news of your protector."

** Ah, that is true!" replied Pitou. " Well, now, how
very droll ! I had forgotten that altogether."

''You are speaking of our worthy Monsieur Gilbert ?'*
said tlie farmer, in a tone Avhich evinced tlie very liigh
consideration he felt for his landlord.

*' Precisely," said Pitou. " But I have no longer any

54 TAKING THE BASTILE.

need of him ; and since Monsieur Billot takes me into his
house, I can tranquilly wait till we hear from him."

** In that case, my friend, you will not have to wait
long, for he has returned."

*' Really ! " cried Pitou ; " and when did he arrive ? "

"1 do not know exactly ; but what I know is, that he
was at Havre a week ago ; for I have in my holsters a
packet which comes from him, and which he sent to me
as soon as he arrived, and which was delivered to me this
very morning at Villers-Cotterets, and in proof of that,
here it is."

*'AVho was it told you that it was from him, fatiier ?'
said Catherine.

" Why, zounds ! since there is a letter in the packet "

** Excuse me, father," said Catherine, smiling, " but I
thought that you conld not read. I only say this, father,
because you make a boast of not knowing how to read."

" Yes, I do boast of it. I wish that people should say,
* Father Billot owes nothing to any man — not even to a
schoolmaster. Father Billot made his fortune himself.'
That is what I wish people to say. It was not, therefore,
I who read the letter. It was the quartermaster of the
gendarmerie whom I happened to meet."

*' And what did this letter tell you, father ? He is al-
ways well satisfied with us, is he not ? "

''Judge for yourself."

'' And the farmer drew from his pocket a letter, which
he handed to his daughter,

Catherine read as follows :

" My dear Monsieur Billot, — I arrive from America,
where I found a people richer, greater, and happier than
the people of our countr3^ This arises from their being
free, which we are not. But we are also advancing to-
ward a new era. Every one should labor to hasten the
day when the light shall shine. I know your principles,
Monsieur Billot. I know your influence over your brother
farmers, and over the whole of that worthy population of
workmen and laborers whom you order, not as a king, but
as a father. Inculcate in them principles of self-devoted-
ness and fraternity, which I have observed that you pos-
sess. Philosophy is universal ; all men ought to read tneir
duties by the light of its torch. I send you a small book,

TAKING THE BASTILE. 55

in which all these duties and all these rights are set forth.
This little book was written by me, although my name
does not appear upon the title-page. Propagate the prin-
ciples it contains, which are those of universal equality.
Let it be read loud in the long winter evenings. Reading
is the pasture of the mind, as the bread is the food of
the body.

"One of these days I shall go to see you, and propose
to you a new system of farm-letting, whicli is much in use
in America. It consists in dividing the produce of the
land between the farmer and the landlord. This appears
to me more in conformity with the laws of primitive
society ; and, above all, more in accordance with the good-
ness of God.

*' Health and fraternity,
" HoxoEE Gilbert,
"Citizen of Pliiladelphia."

"Oh! oh!" cried Pitou, "this is a well-written
letter."

" Is it not ? " said Billot, delighted.

"Yes, my dear father," observed Catherine: "but I
doubt whether the quartermaster of the gendarmerie is of
your opinion."

" And why do yon think so ? "

" Because it appears to me that this letter may not only
bring the doctor into trouble, but you also, my dear
father."

" Pshaw ! " said Billot ; " you are always afraid. But
that matters not. Here is the pamphlet ; and here is em-
ployment ready found for you, Pitou. In the evenings you
shall read it."

"And in the daytime ?"

" In the daytime you will take care of the sheep and
cows. In the meantime, there is your pamphlet."

And the farmer took from one of his holsters one of
those small pamphlets with a red cover, of whicli so great
a number were published in those days, either with or with-
out permission of the authorities.

Only in the latter case the author ran the risk of being
sent to the galleys.

" Read me the title of that book, Pitou, that I may
always speak of the title until I shall be able to speak of

56 TAKING THE BASTILE.

the work itself. Yon shall read the remainder to me an-
other time."

Pitou read on the first page these words, which habit
has since rendered very vague and very insignificant, but
which at that period struck to the very fibers of all
hearts :

" * Of the Independence of Man, and the Liberty of

Nations.*"

" What do you say to that, Pitou ? " inquired the
farmer.

" I say that it appears to me. Monsieur Billot, that in-
dependence and liberty are the same thing. My protector
would be turned out of Monsieur Fortier's class for being
guilty of a pleonasm."

** Pleonasm or not," cried the farmer, '* the book is the
book of a man."

"That matters not, father," said Catherine, with a
woman's admirable instinct. " Hide it, I entreat you. It
will bring you into trouble. As to myself, I know that
lam trembling even at the sight of it."

" And why would you have it injure me, since it has not
injured its author ?"

" And how can you tell that, father ? It is eight days
since that letter was written ; and it could not have taken
eight days for the parcel to have come from Havre. I
also have received a letter this morning."

"And from whom ?"

** From Sebastian Gilbert, who has written to make in-
quiries. He desires me, even, to remember him to his
foster-brother, Pitou. I had forgotten to deliver his
message."

"Well!"

"Well, he says that his father had been expected to
arrive in Paris, and that he had not arrived."

"Mademoiselle is right," said I'itou. " It seems to me
that this non-arrival ia disquieting."

" Hold your tongue, you timid fellow, and read the
doctor's treaty," said the farmer ; " then you will become
not only learned, but a man."

It was thus people spoke in those days; for they were
at the preface of that great Grecian and Roman history
which tho French nation imitated, during ten years, ia

TAKING THE BASTILE. 57

all its phases, devotedness, proscriptions, victories, and
slavery.

Pitoii put the book under his arm with so solemn a ges-
ture, that he completely gained the farmer's heart.

" And now," said Billot, "have you dined ?"

*' No, sir," replied Pitou, maintaining the same religious,
semi-heroic attitude he had assumed since the book had
been intrusted to his care.

" He was just going to get his dinner, when he was
driven out-of-doors," said the young girl.

" Well, then," said Billot, " go in and ask my wife for
the usual farm fare, and to-morrow you shall enter on your
functions."

Pitou, with an eloquent look, thanked M. Billot, and,
led by Catlierine, entered the farm kitchen, a domain
placed under the absolute direction of Mme. Billot.

CHAPTER VI.

Mme. Billot was a stout, buxom mamma, between
thirty-five and thirty-six years old, round as a ball, fresh-
colored, smooth-skinned, and cordial in her manners.
She trotted continually from the fowl-house to the dove-
cote, from the sheep-pens to the cow-stable. She inspected
the simmering of her soup, the stoves on which her fricas-
sees and ragouts were cooking, and the spit on which the
joint was roasting, as does a general when surveying his
cantonments, judging by a mere glance whether everything
was in its right place, and by their very odor, whether the
thyme and laurel leaves were distributed in due propor-
tions in the stew-pans. She scolded from habit, but with-
out the slightest intention that her scolding should be
disagreeable ; and lier husband, whom she honored as she
would the greatest potentate of the earth, did not escape.
Her daughter also got her share, though she loved her
more that Mme. de Sevigne loved Mme. de Griguan ; and
neither were her work-people overlooked, though she fed
them better than any farmer in a circuit of ten leagues
fed his. Therefore was it that when a vacancy occurred
in her household there was great competition to obtain the
place. But, as in heaven, unfortunately, there were many
applicants, and comparatively but few chosen.

58 TAKING THE BABTILE.

We have seen that Pitou, without having been an a'
plieant, hud been elected. This was :i hapj)ines3 which he
appreciated at its just value, especially when he saw the
gold-colored manchet which was placed at his left hand,
the pot of cider which was on his right, and the piece of
pickled pork on a plate before him. Since the uioment
that he lost his poor mother, and that was about five years,
Pitou had not, even on great festival days, partaken of
such fare.

Therefore, Pitou, full of gratitude, felt, as by degrees
he bolted the bread which he devoured, and as he washed
down the pork with large draughts of the cider — therefore,
Piton felt a vast augmentation of respect for the farmer,
of admiration for his wife, and of love for his daughter.
There was only one thing which disquieted him, and that
was the humiliating functions he would have to fulfil
during the day, of driving out the sheep and cows, a
function so little in harmony with that which awaited him
each evening, and the object of which was to instruct
humanity in the most elevated princijiles of sociality and
philosophy.

It was on this subject that Pitou was meditating im-
mediateh' after his dinner. But even in this reverie, the
influence of that excellent dinner was sensibly manifested.
He began to consider things in a very different point of
view to that which he had taken of them when fasting.
The functions of a shepherd and a cow-driver, which he
considered as so far beneath him, had been fulfilled by
gods and demi-gods.

Apollo, in a situation very similar to his own, that is to
say, driven from Olympus by Jupiter, as he, Pitou, had
been driven from Pleux by his aunt, had become a shep-
herd, and tended the flocks of Admettus. It is true that
Admettus was a shepherd king ; but, then, Apollo was a
god !

Hercules had been a cow-keeper, or something very like
it ; since — as we are told by mytliology — he seized the cows
of Geryon by the tail ; for, whether a man leads a cow by
the tail or by the head, depends entirely on the difference
of custom of those who take care of them, and that is all ;
and this would not in any way cliango the fact itself that
he was a cow-leader, that is to say, a cow-keeper.

And, moreover, Tityrus, reclining at the foot of an elmf

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 59

tree, of whom Virgil speaks, and who congratulates iiini-
self ill such beautiful verses on the repose which Augustus
has granted to him, he also was a shepherd.

And, finally, Melibfeus was a shepherd, who so poeti-
cally bewails his having left his domestic hearth.

Certainly, all these persons spoke Latin well enough to
have been abbes, and yet they preferred seeing their goats
browse on the bitter cytisus to saying mass or to chanting
vespers. Therefore, taking everything into consideration,
the calling of a shepherd had its charms. Moreover, Avliat
was to prevent Pi ton from restoring to it the poetry and
the dignity it had lost ? Who could prevent Piton from
proposing trials of skill in singing to the Menalcas and
the Palemons of the neighboring villages ? No one,
undoubtedly. Pitou had more than once sung in the choir ;
and but for his liaving once been caught drinking the wine
out of the Abbe Fortier's cruet, who, with his usual rigor,
had on the instant dismissed the singing boy, this talent
might have become transcendent. He could not play upon
the pipe, 'tis true ; but he could imitate the note of every
bird, which is very nearly the same thing. lie could not
make himself a lute with pipes of unequal thickness, as
did the lover of Syrinx ; but from the linden-tree or the
chestnut he could cut whistles, whose perfection had more
than once produced the enthusiastic applause of his com-
panions. Pitou, therefore, could become a sliepherd
without great derogation of his dignity. He did not
lower himself to this profession, so ill appreciated in
modern days. He elevated the profession to his own
standard.

Besides which, the sheep-folds were placed under the
special direction of Mile. Billot; and receiving orders from
her lips was not receiving orders.

But, on her part, Catherine watched over the dignity of
Pitou.

The same evening, when the young man approached
her, and asked her at what hour he ought to go out to re-
join the shepherds, she said, smiling :

** You will not go out at all."

*' And wliy so ? " said Pitou, with astonishment.

'* I liavemade my father comprehend that the education
you have received places you above the functions which he
had allotted to you. You will remain at the farm. "

»

60 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Ah I 60 rancli the better," said Piton. " In this way
I shall uot leave you."

The excliiniatiou had escaped the ingeunous Piton. But
he had no sooner uttered it than he blushed to his very
ears ; while Catherine, on her part, held down her head
and smiled.

" Ah I forgive me, mademoiselle. It came from my
heart iu spite of me. You must not be angry with me on
that account," said Piton.

*' Neither am I angry with you. Monsieur Pitou," said
Catherine ; " and it is no fault of yours if you feel pleasure
in remaining with me."

There Mas a silence of some moments. This was not at
all astonishing ; the poor children had said so mach to
each other in so few words.

" But," said Piton, " 1 cannot remain at the farm doing
nothing. What am I to do at the farm ? "

*' You will do what I used to do. You will keep the
books, fhe accounts with the work-people, and of our
receipts and ejqienses. You know how to reckon, do you
not ? "

" I know my four rules," proudly replied Pitou.

" That is one more than ever I knew," said Catherine.
** I never was able to get further than the third. You
see, therefore, that my father will bo a gainer by having
you for his accountant ; and, as I also shall gain, and you
yourself will gain by it, ever}^body Avill be a gainer."

"And in what way will you gain by it, ma<iemoiselle ?"
inquired Pitou.

" 1 shall gain time by it ; and in that time I will make
myself caps, that I may look prettier."

'* Ah ! " cried Pitou, " I think you quite pretty enough
without caps."

"That is possible ; but it is only your own individual
taste," said the young girl, laugliing. " Moreover, I can-
not go and dauco on a Sunday at Villers-Cotterets, with-
out having some sort of a cap upon my head. That is all
very well for your great ladies, wlio have the right of wear-
ing powder and going bareheaded."

"1 think your hair more beautiful as it is than if it were
powdered," said Pitou.

" Come, come, now ; I see you are bent on paying me
compliments."

TAKING THE BASTILE. gl

'^ No, mademoiselle, I do not know how to make them.
We did not learn that at the Abbe Fortier's."

** And did you learn to dance there ? "

**To dance ?" inquired Pitoii, greatly astotiished.

" Yes, to dance."

** To dance, and at the Abbe Fortier's ? Good Lord,
mademoiselle ! — oh ! learn to dance, indeed ! "

*' Then, you do not know how to dance ? '^

" No," said Pitou.

" "Well, then, you shall go with me to tlie ball on Sun-
day, and you will look at Monsieur de Charny while he is
dancing. He is the best dancer of all the young men in
the neighborhood."

'•'And who is this Monsieur de Charny?'" demanded
Pitou.

*' He is the proprietor of the Chateau de Boursonue.'*

"And he will dance on Sunday ?"

*' Undoubtedly."

*' And with whom ? "

"With me."

Pitou 's heart sunk within him without his being able to
ascertain a reason for it.

" Then," said he, " it is in order to dance with him that
you wish to dress yourself so finely."

"To dance with him — with others — with everybody."

" Excepting v/ith me."

" And why not with you ?"

" Because I do not know how to dance."

" You will learn."

"Ah ! if you would but teach ma; you, Mauemoiselle
Catherine. I should learn much better tliau by seeing
Monsieur de Charny, I can assure you."

" We shall see that," said Catherine. ''In the mean-
time, it is nine o'clock, and we must go to bed. Good
night, Pitou."

" Good night, Mademoiselle Catherine."

There was something both agreeable and disagreeable
in what Mile. Catherine had said to Pitou. The agreeable
was, that he had been promoted from the rank of a cow-
keeper and shepherd to that of a bookkeeper. The dis-
agreeable was, that he did not know how to dance, and that
M. do Charny did know. According to what Catherine
had said, he was the best dancer in the whole neighborhood.

62 . TAKING THE BASTILE.

Piton was dreaming all uiirht that he saw M. de Charny
dancing, and that he danced very badly.

The next day, Pitou entered upon his new office, under
the direction of Catherine. Then, one thing struck him,
and it M'as that, under some masters, study is altogether
delightful. In the space of about two hours he com-
pletely understood the duties he had to perform.

" Ah, mademoiselle," exclaimed he, " if you had hut
taught me Latin, instead of that Abbe Forticr, I believe
I never should have committed any barbarisms."

" And you would have become an abbe ?"

** And i should have been an abbe," replied Pittou.

"So then, you would have shut yourself up in a semi-
nary, in which no woman would have entered."

" Well, now," cried Pitou, I really had never thought
of that. Mademoiselle Catherine. I would much rather,
then, not be an abbe."

The good man Billot returned home at nine o'clock.
He had gone out before Piton was up. Every morning
the farmer rose at three o'clock, to see to the sending out
of his horses and his wagoners. Then he went over-hi8
fields until nine o'clock, to see that every one was at his
post, and that all his laborers were doing their duty. At
nine o'clock he returned to the house to breakfast, and
went out again at ten. One o'clock was the dinner hour ;
and the afternoon was, like the morning, spent in looking
after the workmen. Thus the affairs of worthy I'illot
were prospering marvellously. As he had said, he pos-
sessed sixty acres in the sunshine, and a thousand lonis in
the shade ; and it was even probable that, had the calcu-
lation been correctly made — had Pitou made up the ac-
count, and had not been too much agitated by the presence
or remembrance of Mile. Catherine, some few acres of
land and some few hundred louis more would have been
found than the worthy farmer had himself admitted.

At breakfast, Billot informed Pitou that the first read-
ing of Dr. Gilbert's new book was to take place in ihe
barn, two days after, at ten in tho morning.

Pilou then timidly observed that ten o'clock was the
hour for attending mass. But the farmer said that he
had esjiecially selected that liour to try his workmen.

We have already said that Father Billot was a philos-
opher.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 63

He detested the priests, whom he considered as the
apostles of tyranny ; and tinding an opportunity for rais-
ing an altar against an altar, lie eagerly took advantage
of it.

Mme. Billot and Catherine ventured to oii'er some ob-
servations ; but the fjirmer replied that the women might,
if they chose, go to mass, seeing that religion had been
made expressly for women ; but as to the men, they should
attend the reading of the doctor's work, or they should
leave his service.

Billot, the philosopher, was very despotic in his own
house. Catherine alone had the privilege of raising her
voice against his decrees. But if these decrees were so
tenaciously determined upon that he knitted his brows
when replying to her, Catherine became as silent as tho
rest.

Catherine, hoAvever, thought of taking advantage of the
circumstance to benefit Pitou. On rising from table, she
observed to her father that, in order to read all the magnif-
icent phrases he would have to read on Sunday morning,
Pitou was but miserably clad. That he was about to play
the part of a master, since he was to instruct others, and
that the master ought not to be placed in a position to
blush in the presence of his disciples.

Billot authorized his daughter to make an arrangement
with Dulauroy, the tailor at Villers-Cotterets, for a new
suit of clothes for Pitou.

Catherine was right, for new garments were not merely
a matter of taste with regard to Pitou. The breeches
which he wore were the same which Dr. Gilbert had, five
years before, ordered for him. At that time they were
too long, but since then had become much too short. We
are compelled to acknowledge, however, that, through
the care of Mile. Angelique, they had been elongated at
least two inches every year. As to the coat and waistcoat,
they had both disappeared for upward of two years, and
had been replaced by the serge gown in which our hero
first presented himself to the observation of our readers.

Pitou had never paid any attention to his toilet. A
looking-glass was an unknown piece of furniture in the
abode of Mile. Angelique ; and not having, like the hand-
some Narcissus, any violent tendency to fall in love with
himself, Pitou had never thought of looking at himself

g4 TAKING THE BASTILE.

in the transparent rivulets near which he set his bird-
snares.

But, from the moment that Mile. Catherine had spoken
to him of accompanying her to the ball ; from the mo-
ment the elegant cavalier, M. de Charny's, name had been
mentioned ; since the conversation about caps, on which
the young girl calculated to increase her attractions, Pitou
had looked at himself in a mirror ; and, being rendered
melancholy by the very dilapidated condition of his gar-
ments, had asked himself in what way he also could make
any addition to his natural advantages.

Unfortunately, Pitou was not able to find any solution
to this question. The dilapidation of his clothes was posi-
tive. Now, in order to have new clothes made, it was
necessary to have ready casii ; and during the whole
course of his existence, Pitou had never possessed a single
penny.

Pitou had undoubtedly read that when shepherds were
contending for the prize in music or in poeti-y, they deco-
rated themselves with roses. But he thought, and with
great reason, that, although such a wreath might well
assort with his expressive features, it would only place in
stronger relief the miserable state of his habiliments.

Pitou was, therefore, most agreeably surjirised when,
on the Sunday morning, at eight o'clock, and at the mo-
ment he was racking his brains for some means of embel-
lishing his person, M. Dulauroy entered his room and
placed upon a chair a coat and breeches of sky-blue cloth
and a large Avhite waistcoat with red stripes.

At the same instant a seamstress came in, and laid upon
another chair, opposite to the above-mentioned one, a
new shirt and a cravat. If the shirt fitted well, she had
orders to complete the half dozen.

It was a moment teeming with surprise. Behind the
seamstress appeared the hat-maker, lie had brought with
him a small cocked hat, of the very latest fusliion, and of
most elegjint sliape, and which had been fabricated by M.
Cornu, tlie first liat-maker in Villers-Cottcrets.

A shoemaker had also been ordered to bring shoes for
Pitou ; and lie had with hini a p:iir with handsome silver
buckles, made expressly for liini.

Pitou could not recover his amazement ; he could not in
any way comprehend that all these riches were for him.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 65

In his most exaggerated dreams lie could not even have
dared to wish for so sumptuous a wardrobe. Teai-s of grat-
itude gushed from his eyelids, and he could only murmur
out these words :

*'0h ! Mademoiselle Catherine, Mademoiselle Catherine
— never will I forget what you have done for me I"

Everything fitted remarkably well, and as if Pitou had
been actually measured for them, with the sole exception
of the shoes, which were too small by half. M. Laudreau
the shoemaker, had taken measure by his son's foot who
was four years Pitou's senior.

This superiority over young Laudreau gave a momen-
tary feeling of pride to our hero ; but this feeling of pride
was soon checked by the reflection that he would either be
obliged to go to the dance in his old shoes or in no shoes
at all, v/hich would not be in accordance with the remain-
der of his costume. But this uneasiness was not of long
duration. A pair of shoes which had been sent home at
the same time to Farmer Billot fitted him exactly. It
fortunately happened that Billot's feet and Pitou's were of
the same dimensions, which was carefully concealed from
Billot, for fear that so alarming a fact might annoy him.

AVhile Pitou was busied in arraying himself in these
sumptuous habiliments, the hair-dresser came in and di-
vided Pitou's hair into three compartments. One, and
the most voluminons, was destined to fall over the collar
of his coat, in the form of a tail ; the two others destined
to ornament the temples, by the strange and unpoetical
name of dog's-ears — ridiculous enough, but that was the
name given to them in those days.

And now there is one thing we must acknowledge — and
this is that when Pitou, thus combed and frizzled, dressed
in his sky-bine coat and breeches, with his rose-striped
waistcoat and liis frilled shirt, with his dog-ear curls, looked
at himself in the glass, he found great difficulty in
recognizing himself, and twisted himself about to see
whether Adonis in person had not redesccnded on the
earth.

He was alone ; he smiled graciously at himself ; aiid with
head erect, his thumbs thrust into his waistcoat-pockets,
he said, raising himself upon his toes :

" We shall see this Monsieur de Charny ! "

It is true that Ange Pitou, in his new costume, re-

66 TAKING THE BASTILE.

sembled, as one pea does another, not one of Virgil's
sheplierds, but one of those so admirably painted by
AVatteau.

Consequently, the first step which Pitou made on en-
tering the farm kitchen was a perfect triumph.

'•'Oh! mamma, only see," cried Catherine; "how well
Pitou looks now ! "

" The fact is, that one would hardly know him again,'*
replied Mme. Billot.

Unfortunately, after the first general survey which had
so much struck the young girl, she entered into a more
minute examination of the details, and Pitou was less good-
looking in the detailed than in the general view.

*'0h, how singular!" cried Catherine, "what great
hands you have ! "

"Yes," said Pitou, proudly, " I have famous hands,
have I not ? "

"And what thick knees I "

" That is a proof that I shall grow taller."

" Why, it appears to me that you are tall enough already.
Monsieur Pitou," observed Catherine.

" That does not matter ; I shall grow taller still," said
Pitou. "I am only seventeen and a half years old."

"And no calves !"

*' Ah ! yes, that is true — none at all ; but they will grow
soon."

" That is to be hoped," said Catherine ; " but no matter,
you are very well as you are."

Pitou made a bow.

" Oh ! oh ! " exclaimed Billot, coming in at that mo-
ment, and also struck with Pitou's appearance. " IIow fine
you are, my lad ! How I wish your aunt Angelique
could see you noAV ! "

" And so do I," said Pitou.

" I wonder what she would say ?"

" She would not say a word ; she would be in a perfect
fury."

" But, father," said Catherine, with a certain degree of
uneasiness, " would she not have the right to take him
back again ? "

"Why, sbc turned him out-of-doors."

"And besides which," said Pitou, " the five years have
gone by."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 67

** What five years ? " inquired Catherine.

" The five years for which Doctor Gilbert left a thousand

1" j>
ivres.

*' He had, then, left a thousand livres with your
aunt ? "

" Yes, yes, yes ; to get me into a good aiDprenticeship."

*' That is a man ! " exclaimed the farmer. "When one
thinks that I hear something of the same kind related of
him every day. Therefore — for him," he added, stretching
out his hand with a gesture of admiration, ** will I be de-
voted in life and death."

" He wished that I should learn some trade," said Pitou.

*' And he was right. And this is the way in which good
intentions are thwarted. A man leaves a thousand francs
that a child may be taught a trade, and instead of having
him taught a trade, he is placed under the tuition of a
bigoted priest. And how much did she pay to your
Abbe Fortier ? "

'MVho?"

*'Your aunt."

*'She never paid him anything."

" What ! Did she pocket the two hundred livres a year
which that good Monsieur Gilbert paid ? "

" Probably."

" Listen to me, for I have a bit of advice to give you,
Pitou ; whenever your bigoted old aunt shall walk off,
take care to examine minutely every cupboard, every
mattress, every pickle jar "

" And for what ? " asked Pitou.

" Because, do you see, you will find some hidden treas-
ure, some good old louis, in some old stocking-foot. Why,
it must undoubtedly be so, for she could never have found
a purse large enough to contain all her savings."

" Do you think so ? "

" Most assuredly. But we will speak of this at a more
proper time and place. To-day \ve must take a little
walk. Have you Doctor Gilbert's book ?"

" I have it here, in my pocket."

''Father," said Catherine, "have you well reflected
upon this ?"

" There is no need for reflection," replied the farmer,
*' when one is about to do a good thing, my child. The
doctor told me to have the book read, and to propagate the

68 TAKING THE BASTILE.

principles which ifc coutains ; the book shall therefore be
read, aud the priucipleij tjliall bo propagated. "

"And," said Catherine, tiniidl}', "may my mother aud
I, then, go to attend mass ? "

"Go to mass, my child ; go with your mother," re})lied
Billot. ** You are women ; we who are men have other
things to think of. Come, Pitou, we must be oU, for we
are waited for."'

Pitou bowed majestically to Mme. Billot aud Mile.
Catherine ; then, with head erect, he followed the worthy
fanner, proud of having been thus, for the first time,
called a man.

CHAPTEE VIL

There was a numerous assemblage in the barn. Billot,
as we have said, was much respected by his laborers, in-
asmuch as, though he scolded them unscrupulously, he
fed aud paid them well.

Consequently, every one of them had hastened eagerly to
accept his invitation.

^Moreover, at this period the people had been seized
with that extraordinary fever which pervades nations
when nations are about to set themselves to work to pro-
duce some great change. Strange, new words, which
until then had scarcely ever been uttered, issued from
mouths which had never before pronounced them. They
were the words — Liberty, Independence, Emancipation —
and, strange to say, it was not only among the people that
these words were heard ; no, these words had been pro-
nounced in the first place by the nobility, aud the voice
which responded to them was but an echo.

It was in tlie west that had first shone forth this light,
which was destined to illuminate until it seared. It M'as
in America that arose tliis sun, which, in accomplishing
its course, was to make France one vast and l)urning nuiss,
by the light of which the affrighted nations were to read
the word Republic traced in vivid characters of blood.

But notwithstanding this, meetings in which ])olitical
affairs wore discussed were less frequent tlian might have
been imagined. Men who had sprung u|) no one kne\r
from where, ajjostlea of an invisible and almost unknown

TAKING THE BASTILE. gg.

deity, and traversed towns and country villages, strewing
in their road words in praise of liberty. The government,
blinded heretofore, began at length to open its eyes. Those
who were at the head of the immense machine denom-
inated the public chariot, felt that some of its wheels
were paralyzed, without being able to comprehend whence
the obstacle proceeded. The opposition existed in all
minds, if it had not yet instilled itself into all liands and
arms ; invisible, though present, though sensible, though
threatening, and still more threatening from being, like
ghosts, intangible, and from being divined, although it
could not be clutched.

Twenty or twenty-five husbandmen, all in the employ-
ment of Billot, had assembled in the barn.

Billot entered it, followed by Pitou. All heads were
instantly uncovered, and they waved their hats to welcome
their loved master. It was plainly visible that all these
men were ready to meet death should he but give the signal.

The farmer explained to the country people that the
pamphlet which Pitou was about to read to them was the
work of Dr. Gilbert. Tlie doctor was well known through-
out the whole district, in which he was the proprietor of
several farms, the one rented by Billot being the most
considerable.

A cask had been prepared for the reader. Pitou as-
cended this extempore forum and at once begun.

It is to be remarked that people of the lower class, and
I might almost venture to say, men in general, listen with
most attention to that which they understand the least.
It was evident that the general sense of the pamjihlet
escaped the perceptions of most of the enlightened among
this rustic auditory, and even of Billot himself. But in
the midst of that obscure phraseology from time to time
flashed, like the lightnings in a dark sky charged with
electricity, the luminous words of Independence, Liberty,
Equality. Notliing more was necessary ; shouts of ap-
plause burst forth ; cries of " Long live Doctor Gilbert ! "
resounded on every side. Not more than one third of the
pamphlet had been read ; it was decided that the re-
mainder should be delivered on the two following Sundays.

The auditors were, therefore, invited for the next Sun-
day, and every one of them iiromised to attend.

Pitou had well performed his part ; he had read energet-

70 TAKING THE BASTILE.

ieally and well. Nothing succeeds so well as success. The
reader had taken his share of the plaudits which had been
addressed to the work, and, submitting to the ialiueuce
of this relative science. Billot himself felt growing within
him a certain degree of consideration for the pupil of the
Abbe Fortier. Pitou, already a giant in his physical pro-
portions, had morally grown ten inches in the opinion of
Billot.

But there was one thing wanting to Pitou's happiness :
Mile. Catherine had not been present at his triumph.

But Father Billot, enchanted with the effect produced
by the doctor's pam])hlct, hastened to communicate its
success to his wife and daughter. Mme. Billot e no

reply ; she was a short-sighted woman.

AlUe. Catherine smiled sorrowfully.

" Well, what is the matter with you now ? " said the
farmer.

'•Father! my dear father!" cried Catherine, " I f eai-
that you are running into danger."

" There, now, are you going to play the bird of ill-omen?
You are well aware that I like the lark better than the
owl."

" Father, I have already been told to warn you that eyes
are watching you."

" And who was it that told you this, if vou please ? "

" A friend."

'*A friend? All advice is deserving of thanks. You
must tell the name of this friend. Who is he ? Come,
now, let us hear."

"A man who ought to be well informed on such
matters."

** But who is it?"

'* Monsieur Isidor de Charny."

** What business has that fop to meddle in such matters?
Does he pretend to give me advice upon my way of think-
ing ? Do I give him advice upoi his mode of dressing ?
It appears to me that as much might be said on the one
subject as the other."

" My dear father, I do not tell you this to vex you.
The advice he gave me was well intended."

" Well, then, in return, I will give him my counsel, and
which you can on my behalf transmit to him."

" And what is that ? "

TAKING THE BASTILE. .• 71

** It is that he and his fellows take good care what they
are about. They shake these noble gentlemen about very
nicely in the National Assembly ; and more than once a
great deal has been said of court favorites, male and
female. Let him forewarn his brother, Monsieur Oliver
Charny, who is out yonder, to look to himself, for it is
said he is not on bad terms with the Austrian woman."

" Father," said Catherine, "you have more experience
than we have ; act according to your pleasure."

"Yes, indeed," murmured Pitou, whose success had
given him great confidence, " what business has your
Monsieur Isidor to make and meddle ? "

Catherine either did not hear him, or pretended not to
hear him, and there the conversation dropped.

The dinner was got through as usual. Never did dinner
appear so long to Pitou. He was feverishly anxious to
show himself abroad with Mile. Catherine leaning on his
arm. The Sunday was a monstrously great day to him,
and he promised himself that the date, the 12th of July,
should ever remain engraved upon his memory.

They left the farm at last at about three o'clock.
Catherine was positively charming. She was a pretty,
fair-haired girl with black eyes, slight and flexible as the
willows that shaded the small spring from which the farm
was supplied with water. She was, moreover, dressed with
that natural coquetry which enhances the advantages of
every woman, and her pretty little fantastic cap, made
with her own hands, as she had told Pitou, became her
admirably.

The ball did not, in general, commence till six o'clock.
Four village minstrels, mounted upon a small stage formed
of planks did the honors of this ball-room in the open air,
on receiving a contribution of six shillings for every
country dance.

While waiting for the opening of the dance, the com-
pany walked in the celebrated Hall of Sighs, uf which
Aunt Angelique had spoken, to see the young gentlemen
of the town and the neighborhood play at tennis, under
the direction of Master P'arollet, tennis-master-iu-cliief to
His Highness the Duke of Orleans. Master P'arollct was
considered a perfect oracle, and his decision in matters of
cliasse and passe and service was as irrevocable as were the
laws of the Medes and Persians.

72 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Pitou, without knowing why, would have very much
desired to reuiain in the llall of Sighs, but it wtis not for
the purpose of reuuiining concealed beneath the shade of
this double row of beecli-trees that Catherine had attired
herself in the becoming dress whicli had so much aston-
ished Pitou.

Women are like the flowers which chance hath brought
forth in the shade, their tendency is always toward the
light : and one way or the other they must expand their
fresh and perfumed petals in tlie sunshine, thougli it
withers and destroys them.

The violet alone, as is asserted by the poets, has the
modesty to remain concealed, but then it is arrayed in
mourning, as if deploring her useless, because unnoticed,
charms.

Catherine, therefore, dragged away at Pitou's arm, and
so successfully, that they took the path to the tennis-court.
We must, however, hasten to acknowledge that Pitou did
not go very unwillingly. lie also was as anxious to dis-
play his sky-blue suit and his cocked hut as Catherine was
to show her Galatea cap and her shining short silk bodice.

One thing above all flattered our liero, and gave him a
momentary advantage over Catherine. As no one recog-
nized Jiini, Pitou lu^ver having been seen in such sumpt-
uous habiliments, they took him for some young stranger
arrived in the town, some nephew or cousin of the Billot
family ; some even asserted that he was Catherine's in-
tended. But Pitou felt too great an interest in proving
his own identity to allow the error to be of long con-
tinuance.

He gave so many nods to his friends, he so frequently
took ol! his hat to his acquaintances, that at last the un-
worthy pupil of the Abl>e Fortier was recognized in the
sj^ruce young countryman.

A sort of buzzing murmur quickly ran through the
throng, and many of his former companions exclaimed,
"Why, really, it is Pitou!" "Only look at Pitou!''
" Did you see Ange Pitou ? "

This clamor at length reached the ears of Mile. Ange-
lique : but as this clamor informed her tbat tho good-look-
ing youth pointed out by it was her nephew, walking with
his toes turned out and his elbows gracefully curved, the
old maid, who had always seen Pitou walk with his toea

TAKING THE BASTILE. ^^

turned in and his elbows stuck to liis ribs, shook her head
incredulously, and merely said :

*' You are mistaken ; that is not my pitiful nephew."

The two young people reached the tennis-court. On
that day there happened to be a match between the players
of Soissons and those of Villers-Cotterets ; so that the
game was very animated. Catherine and I'llou placed
themselves close to the rope stretched to jirevent the
crowd from interfering with tlie players ; it was Catherine
who had selected this place as being the best.

In about a minute tlie voice of Master Farollet was
heard, calling out : " Two in — go over."

The players effectually changed places ; that is to say,
that they each went to defend their quarters and attack
those of their adversaries. One of the players, on passing
by, bowed to Catherine with a smile ; Catherine replied by
a courtesy, and bluslied. At the same moment Pitou felt
a nervous trembling shoot through Catherine's arm,
which was leaning on his.

An unknown anguish shot through Pitou's heart.

" That is Monsieur de Charny," said he, looking, at his
companion.

" Yes," replied Catherine. " Ah ! you know him then ?"

"I do not know him," replied Pitou, "but I guessed
that it was he."

And, in fact, Pitou had readily conceived this young man
to be M. de Charny, from what Catherine had said to him
the previous evening.

The person who had bowed to the young girl was an
elegant gentleman, wlio might be twenty-three or twenty-
four years of age ; he was handsome, of good stature, well
formed, and graceful in his movements, as are all who
have had an aristocratic education from their very cradle.
All those manly exercises in which perfection can only be
attained, but oii the condition of their being studied from
childhood, M. Isidore de Charny executed Avith remark-
able perfection ; besides which, he was one of those whose
costumes always harmonized with the pursuit he was
engaged in. His hunting-dresses were quoted for their
perfect taste ; his attire in the fencing-room might have
served as a pattern to St. George himself; and his riding
coats were, or, ratlier, appeared to be, tlianks to his man-
ner of wearing them, of a particularly elegant shape.

4 — Dumas — Vol. IX.

7* TAKING THE BASTILE.

On the day we are speaking of, M. de Charny, a yonnger
brother of our old acquuiutance, the Count de Charny,
was attired in tight-httiug pantaloons of a light color,
whicli set off to great advantage the shape of his finely
formed and muscular limbs ; his hair was negligently
dressed as for the morning, elegant tennis sandals for tlie
.moment were substituted for the red-heeled shoe or the
top-boots ; his waistcoat was of white marsella, fitting as
closely to his waist as if he had worn stays ; and, to sum
up all, his servant was waiting upon the slope with a green
coat embroidered with gold lace for his master to put on
when the match was ended.

The animation of the game communicated to his features
all the charm and freshness of youth, notwithstanding his
twenty-three years, the nightly excesses he had committed,
and the gambling parties he had attended, which fre-
quently the rising sun had illuminated with its rays; all
this had made sad havoc in his constitution.

None of these personal advantages, which doubtless the
young girl had remarked, had escaped the jealous eyes of
Pitou. On observing the small hands and feet of M. de
Charny, he began to feel less jn'oud of that prodigality of
nature which had given him the victory over the shoe-
maker's son, and he reflected that nature might have dis-
tributed in a more skilful manner over every part of his
frame the elements of which it was composed.

In fact, with what there was too much in the hands, the
feet, and the knees of Pitou, nature might have furnished
him with a handsome, well-formed leg. Only, things were
not in their riglit place : where there required a certain
elegance of proportion, there Avasan unnatural thickness ;
where a certain sleekness and rotundity would have been
advantageous, there was an utter void.

Pitou looked at his legs with the same expression as the
stag did of whom we have read in the fable.

" What is the matter with you. Monsieur Pitou ? " said
Catlierine, who had observed his discontented looks.

Pitou did not reply ; he could not have explained his
feelings ; he, therefore, only sighed.

Tlie game had terminated. The Viscount de Charny
took advantage of the interval between tlie game just
finished and the one about to comnieuce, to come over to
speak to Catherine. As he approached them nearer and

TAKING THE BASTILE. 75

nearer, Pitou observed the color heightening in the young
girl's cheeks, and felt her arm become more and more
trembling.

The viscount gave a nod to Piton, and then, with that
familiar politeness which the nobility of that period knew
how to adopt with the citizens' daughters and grisettes, he
inquired of Catherine as to the state of her health, and
asked her to be his partner in the first dance. Catherine
accepted. A smile conveyed the thanks of the young
nobleman. Tlie game was about to begin, and he was
called for. He bowed to Catherine, and then left her with
the same elegant ease with which he had approached her.

Pitou felt all the superiority which the man possessed
over him, who could speak, smile, approach, and take
leave in such a manner.

A month's study, employed in endeavoring to imitate the
simple, though elegant, movements of M. de Charny,
would only have produced a ridiculous jjarody, and this
Pitou himself acknowledged.

If Pitou had been capable of entertaining a feeling of
hatred, he would from that moment have detested the
Viscount de Charny.

Catherine remained looking at the tennis-players until
the moment when they called their servants to bring their
coats to them. She then directed her steps toward the
place set apart for dancing, to Pitou's great despair, who
on that day appeared to be destined to go everywhere but
where he wished.

M. de Charny did not allow Catherine to wait long for
him. A slight change in his dress had converted him from
a tennis-player into an elegant dancer.

The violins gave the signal, and he at once presented
his hand to Catherine, reminding her of the 2iromise she
had made to dance with him.

That which Pitou exi)crienced when he felt Catherine
withdrawing her arm from within his, and saw the young
girl blushing deeply as she advanced with her cavalier into
the circle, was one of the most disagreeable sensations of
his whole life. A cold perspiration stood upon his brow ;
a cloud passed over his eyes ; lie stretched out liis hand
and caught hold of the balustrade for support, for he felt
that his knees, strongly constituted as they were, were
giving way.

76 TAKING THE BASTILE.

As to Catherine, she did not appear to liave, and very
probably even had not, any idea of what was passing in
poor Pitoirs heart. She was at once happy and proud —
happy at being about to dance, and proud of dancing
with the handsomest cavalier of the whole neigliborhood.

If Pitou had been constrained to admire M. de Charny
as a tennis-player, he was compelled to do him justice as
a dancer. In those days the fashion had not yet sprung
up of walking instead of dancing. Dancing was an art
which formed a necessary part of the education of every
one. Without citing the case of M. de Lauzun, who had
owed his fortune to the manner in which he had danced
his first steps in the king's quadrille, more than one noble-
man owed the favor he had enjoyed at court to the manner
in which he had extended his legs or pointed the extremity
of his COB. In this respect the viscount was a model of
grace and perfection, and he might, like Louis XIV.,
have danced in a theater with the chance of being ap-
plauded, although he was neither a king nor an actor.

For the second time, Pitou looked at his own legs, and
was obliged to acknowledge that unless some great meta-
morphosis should take place in that portion of his in-
dividuality, he must altogether renounce any attempt to
succeed in vying with ^I. de Charny in the particular art
which he was displaying at that moment.

The country dance having ended — for Catherine it
had scarcely lasted a few seconds, but to Pitou it had ap-
peared a century — she returned to resume the arm of her
cavalier, and could not avoid observing the change which
had taken place in his countenance. He was pale ; the
perspiration was streaming from his forehead, and a tear,
half dried up by jealousy, was standing in his humid eye.

"Ah! good Ilcaven ! " she exclaimed, "what is the
matter with you, Pitou ? "

"The matter is," replied the poor youth, " that I shall
never dare to dance with you, after having seen you dance
with Monsieur de Charny."

" Psliaw !" said Catherine, "you must not allow your-
self to be cast down in this way ; you will dance as well as
yon are able, and I shall not feel the less pleasure in danc-
ing with you."

"Ah!" cried Piton, "you say that, mademoiselle, to
console me ; but I know myself, and I feel assured that

TAKING THE BASTILE. 77

you will alwa3'6 feel more pleasure iu dancing ^ith the
young nobleman than with me."

Catherine made no reply, for she would not utter a
falsehood, only, as she was an excellent creature, and hud
begun to perceive that something extraordinary was pass-
ing in the heart of the poor youth, she treated him very
kindly ; but this kindness could not restore to hira his
lost joy and peace of mind. Father Billot had spoken
truly ; Pitou was beginning to be a mair — he Avas suffer-
ing.

Catherine danced five or six country dances after this,
one of which was with M. de Charny. This time, v.-ith-
out suffering less in reality than before, Pitou was, in ap-
pearance, much more calm. He followed each movement
which Catherine and her cavalier made with eager eyes.
He endeavored from the motion of their lips to divine
what they were saying to each other, and when during
the figures of the dance, their hands were joined, he tried
to discern whether tlieir hands merely touched or pressed
each other when they came in contact.

Doubtless, it was this second dance with De Charny that
Catherine had been awaiting, for it was scarcely ended
when the young girl proposed to Pitou to return to the
farm. Never was proposal acceded to with more alacrity ;
but the blow was struck, and Pitou, while taking long
strides which Catherine, from time to time was obliged
to restrain, remained perfectly silent.

"What is the matter with you ?" at length said Cathe-
rine to him, '*' and why is it that you do not speak to
me ? "

'•'I do not speak to you, mademoiselle," said Pitou,
" because I do not know how to speak as Monsieur de
Charny does. AVhat would you have me say to you, after
all the fine thijigs Avhich he whispered to you while dancing
with yon."

'' Oidy see how unjust you are. Monsieur Ange ; why,
we were speaking of you."

" Of me, mademoiselle, and how so ? "

''Why, Monsieur Pitou, if your protector should not
return, you must have another found to supply his place."

"lam, then, no longer capable of keeping the farm
accounts ? " inquired Pitou, with a sigh.

"On the contrary. Monsieur Ange, it is the farm

78 TAKING THE BASTILE.

aceonuts wliich arc no longer worthy of being kept by yon.
Witli tlie education tliat you have received, you can find
some more fitting occupation."

" I do not know what I may be fit for, but this I know,
that I will not accept anytliing better if I am to obtain it
through the Viscount de Charny."

*'And why should you refuse his protection? His
brother, the Count de Charny, is, it would apjiear, in high
favor at court, and has married an intimate friend of the
queen. He told me that, if it would be agreeable to you,
he could obtain for you a place in the custom-house."

*' Much obliged, mademoiselle ; but I have already told
you that I am well satisfied to remain as I am, and unless,
indeed, your father wishes to send me away, I will remain
at the farm."

*' And why, in the devil's name, should I send you
away?" cried a gruff voice, which Catherine tremblingly
recognized to be that of her father.

"My dear Pitou," said Catherine, in a whisper, "do
not say a word of Monsieur Isidor, I beg of you."

" Well, why don't you answer ? "

" AVhy, really, I don't know," said Pitou, much con-
fused ; " perhaps you do not think me sufficiently well in-
formed to be useful to you."

*' Xot sufficiently well informed, when you calculate as
well as Bareine, and that you read M^ell enough to teach
our schoolmaster, who, notwithstanding, thinks himself
a great scholar. Xo, Pitou ; it is God who brings to niy
house the people who enter it, and when once they are in
it they shall remain there as long as God pleases."

Pitou returned to the farm on this assurance ; but al-
thougli tliis was something, it was not enough. A great
change had been operated in his mind between the time
of his going out and returning ; he had lost a tiling which,
once lost, is never recovered ; this was confidence in him-
self, and, therefore, Pitou, contrary to his usual custom,
slept very badly. In his waking moments he recalled to
mind Dr. Gilbert's book. This book was written princi-
pally against the nobility, against the abuses committed
by the privileged classes, against the cowardice of those
wlio submitted to them. It apjieared to Pitou that he
only tlicn began to comprelieml all tlie fine things which
he liad read that morning, and he promised himself, aa

TAKING THE BASTILE, 79

soon as it should be daylight, to read for his own satisfac-
tion, and to himself, the masterjsiece which he had read
aloud and to everybody.

But as Pitou had slept badly he awoke late. He did not,
however, the less determine on carrying into effect his pro-
ject of reading the book. It was seven o'clock ; the farmer
would not return until nine ; besides, were he to return
earlier, he could not but approve an occupation which he
had himself recommended.

He descended by a small staircase, and seated himself
on a low bench which happened to be under Catherine's
window. Was it accident that had led Pitou to seat him-
self precisely in that spot, or did he know the relative
positions of that window and that bench ?

Be that as it may, Pitou was attired in his old everyday
clothes, which there had not yet been time to get replaced,
and which were composed of his black breeches, his green
cassock, and his rusty-looking shoes. He drew the pam-
phlet from his pocket and began to read.

We would not venture to say that on beginning to read
the eyes of Pitou were not, from time to time, turned from
his book to the window ; but as the window did not ex-
hibit the fair face of the young girl in its frame-work of
nasturtiums and convolvuli. Pi ton's eyes at length fixed
themselves intently on his book.

It is true that as his hand neglected to turn over the
leaves, and that the more fixed his attention appeared to
be, the less did liis hand move, it might be believed that
his mind was fixed upon some other object, and that he
was meditating instead of reading.

Suddenly it appeared to Pitou that a shade was thrown
over the pages of the pamphlet, until then illuminated by
the morning sun. This shadow, too dense to be that of a
cloud, could, therefore, only be produced by some opaque
body. Now, there are opaque bodies which are so delight-
ful to look upon, that Pitou quickly turned round to as-
certain what it was that thus intercepted his sunshine.

Pitou 's hopes were, however, delusive. There was, in
fact, an opaque body which robbed him of the daylight
and heat which Diogenes desired Alexander not to deprive
him of. But this opaque body, instead of being deliglit-
ful, presented to his view a sufficiently disagreeable ap-
pearance.

80 TAKING THE BA8TILE.

It was that of a man about forty-five years old, wlio was
taller and thinner than Pitou himself, dressed iu a coat
almost as thrcudbure us his own, and who was leaning his
head over his shoulder, and appeared to be'reading tiie pam-
phlet with a curiosity e<|ual to Pitou's absence of mind,

Pitou was very much astonished, a gracious smile was
playing round the lips of the dark-looking gentleman, ex-
hibiting a mouth which had only retained four teeth, two
in the upper and two in the lower jaw, crossing audslnirp-
ening themselves against one another, like the tusks of the
wild boar,

^' An American edition," said the man, with a strong
nasal twang ; "an octavo : ' On the Liberty of Man and
the Independence of Nations, Boston, 1788.'"

While the man was reading, Pitou opened his eyes with
progressively increasing astonishment, so that when the
black man ceased speaking, Pitou's eyes had attained the
greatest possible development of which they were capable.
" Boston, 1788, That is right, sir," replied Pitou.

"It is the treatise of Doctor Gilbert," said the gentle-
man in black.

"Yes, sir,"' politely replied Pitou, rising from his seat,
for he hud been told that it was uncivil to remain sitting
when speaking to a superior ; and in the still ingenuous
mind of Pitou this man had the right to claim sujieriority
over him.

But on getting up, Pitou observed something of a rosy
color moving toward the window, and which gave him a
significant glance. This rosy something was Mile. Cath-
erine, The young girl looked at him with an extraor-
dinary expression, and made strange signs to him.

" Sir, if it is not being indiscreet," said the gentleman
iu black, mIio, having his back turned toward the window,
was altogether ignorant of what was passing, " may I ask
to whom this book belongs ? "

And he pointed with his finger to the pamphlet which
Pitou held in his hand.

Pitou was about to say that tho book belonged to
M. Billot, when he heard the following words uttered ia
an almost supplicating tone :

** Say that it is your own."

The gentleman in l)lack, who was at that moment all
eyes, did not hear these words.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 81

" Sir," said Pitou, majestically, '' this book belongs to

me."

The gentleman in black raised his head, for he began
to remark that tlie amazed looks of Pitou Avere from time
to time diverted from him, to fix themselves on one partic-
ular spot. He saw tlie window, but Catherine had di-
vined the movement of the gentleman in black, and, rapid
as a bird, she had disappeared.

" What are you looking at, up yonder ?" inquired the
gentleman in black.

" Well, now," replied Pitou smiling, '' permit me to ob-
serve to you that you are very inquisitive — curiosiis, or,
rather, avidus cognoscendi as the Abbe Fortier, my pre-
ceptor, used to say."

"You say, then," rejoined the interrogator, without
appearing in the slightest degree intimidated by the proof
of learning which Pitou had just given, with the inten-
tion of affording the gentleman in black a higher idea of
his acquirements than he had before entertained, "you
say, then, that this book is yours ? "

Pitou gave his eyes a furtive glance, so that the window
came within the scope of his visual organs. Catherine's
head again appeared at it, and made him an affirmative
sign.

" Yes, sir," replied Pitou. " You are, perhaps, anxious
to read it — Avidus legendi lihri, or legenda hidoria."

"Sir," said the gentleman in black, "you appear to be
much above the position which your attire would indicate.
Non dives vestiUi sed ingem'o. Consequently, I arrest

you."

" How, you arrest me!" cried Pitou, completely as-
tounded.

" Yes, sir ; follow me, I beg of you."

Pitou no longer looked up in the air, but around liim,
and perceived two police sergeants who were awaiting the
orders of the gentleman in black. The two sergeants
seemed to him to have sprung from beneath the ground.

" Let us draw up our report, gentlemen," said the
gentleman in black.

The sergeants tied Pitou's hands together with a rope,
and between his hands remained Dr. Gilbert's book.

Then they fastened Pitou himself to a ring which was
in the wall under the window.

82 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Pitou was about to exclaim against tliis treatment, bnt
he heard the voice which had so much influence over him,
saying, " Let them do what they please,"

Pitou, tlierel'ore, allowed them to do as they pleased,
with a docility which perfectly enchanted the sergeants,
and, above all, the gentleman in black. So that without
the slightest mistrust they entered the farmhouse, the
two sergeants to fetch a table, the gentlenuiu in black to
— but this we shall learn by and by.

The sergeants and the gentleman in black had scarcely
entered the house when the soft voice was again heard.

** Hold up your hands," said the voice.

Pitou not only held up liis hands, but his head, and he
perceived the pule and terrified face of Catherine ; she had
a knife in her hand.

" Higlier ! higher ! " said she.

Pitou raised himself on tiptoe.

Catherine leaned out of the window, the knife touched
the rope, and Pitou recovered the liberty of his hands.

" Take the knife," suid Catherine ; " and in your turn
cut the rope whicli fastens you to the ring."

It was not necessary to repeat this twice to Pitou. He
cut the cord, and was then completely free.

'* And now," said Catherine, '' there is a double-louis.
You have good legs ; niake your escape. Go to Paris, and
acquaint the doctor "

She could not complete the sentence. The two sergeants
reai)peared, and the double-louis fell at Piton's feet.

Pitou quickly snatched it up. The sergeants were ou
the threshold of the door, where they remained for a mo-
ment or two, astonished at seeing the man at liberty who
so short a time before they had so securely -tied np. On
seeing them. Pi ton's hair stood ou end. and he confusedly
remembered the in crinilms agues of Eurainedes.

The sergeants and Pitou remained for a short time in
the position of two pointer dogs and a hare — motionless,
and looking at one another, lint as, at the slightest move-
ment of the dogs, the liare springs off, at the first move-
ment of the sergeants Pitou gave a iirodigious bound and
leaped over a high hedge.

The sergeants uttered a cry which made the exempt
rush out of the hous<!, who had a small casket under his
arm. The exempt did not lose any time in parleying, bat

TAKING THE BASTILE. 83

instantly ran after Pitou ; the two sergeants imitated liis
example ; but they were not active enough to jump, as he
had done, over a hedge four feet and a half in height.
They were, therefore, compelled to go round to a gate.
But when they readied the corner of the hedge, tliey

Eerceived Pitou five hundred yards off in the plain, and
astening toward the forest, from which he was distant
scarcely a quarter of a league, and which he would doubt-
less reach in some six or seven minutes.

At that moment Pitou turned round ; and, on perceiv-
ing the sergeants, who were pursuing him rather from a
desire to perform their duty than with the hope of catch-
ing him, he redoubled his speed and soon disappeared iu
the skirts of the wood.

Pitou ran on at this rate for another quarter of an hour.
He could have run two hours had it been necessary, for
he had the wind of a stag, as well as its velocity.

But at the end of a quarter of an hour he felt instinc-
tively that he must be out of danger. He stopped, drew
breath, and listened ; and having assured himself that he
had completely distanced his pursuers, he said to himself :

'" It is incredible that so many events can have been
crowded into three days ; " and he looked alternately at
his double-louis and his knife.

^' Oil !" said he, ** Iwisli I had only time to change my
double-louis, and give two sous to Mademoiselle Catherine ;
for I am much afraid that this knife will cut our friend-
ship. No matter," added he "since she has desired me
to go to Paris, let us go there."

And Pitou, having looked about him to ascertain what
part of the country he had reached, and finding that he
was between Bouronne and Yvors, took a narrow path
which would lead him straight to Gondrcville, which path
was crossed by the road which led direct to Paris.

CHAPTER VIII.

But now let us return to the farm and relate the catas-
trophe of which Pitou's episode was the winding-up.

At about six o'clock in the morning an agent of the
Paris police, accompanied by two sergeants, arrived at

84 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Villers-Cotterets, had presented themselves to the com-
missary of police, and hiul requested that the rofsideuce of
Farmer Billot might be pointed out to them.

AVlieu they came within about five liundred feet of the
farm, the exempt perceived a Taborer working in a field.
He went to him and asked him whether he should find M.
Billot at home. The laborer replied that M. Billot never
returned home until nine o'clock — that is to say, before
the breakfast hour. But at that very moment, as chance
would have it, the laborer raised his eyes, and pointed to
a man on horseback who was talking with a shepherd at
the distance of a quarter of a league from the farm.

" And yonder, said he, " is the person you are inquir-
ing for."

*' Monsieur Billot ? "

<( Yes."

" That horseman ? "

** Yes, that is Monsieur Billot."'

'' Well, then, my friend," rejoined the exempt, " do you
wish to afford great pleasure to your master ? "

" I should like it vastly."

" Go and tell him that a gentleman from Paris is wait-
ing for him at the farm."

" Oh ! " cried the laborer, " can it be Doctor Gilbert ?"

*' Tell him what I say — that is all."

The countryman did not wait to have the order repeated,
but ran as hard as he could across the fields, while the
police oflicer and the two sergeants went and concealed
themselves behind a half-ruined wall which stood facing
the gate of the farmyard.

In a very few minutes the galloping of a horse was heard.
It was Billot wlio had hastened back.

He went into the farmyard, jumped from his horse,
threw the bridle to one of the stable-boys, and rushed into
the kitchen, being convinced that the first person he should
see there would be Dr. Gilbert, standing beneath the im-
mense mantelpiece; but he only saw Mme. Billot seated
ia the middle of the room, plucking the feathers from a
duck with all the minute care which this ditlicult opera-
tion demands.

Catherine was in her own room, employed in making a
cap for the following .Sunday. As it ajipears, Catherine
was determined to be jjrepared in good time ; but if the

£-^

t

^^

^

TAKING THE BASTILE 85

women have one pleasure greater than that of being well
dressed, it is that of preparing the articles with whicli they
are to adorn themselves.

Billot paused on the threshold of the kitchen, and looked
ai'ound inquiringly.

" Who, then, was it sent for me ? " said he.

*' It was I," replied a flute-like voice behind him.

Billot turned round, and perceived the gentleman in
black and the two sergeants.

" Heyday ! " cried he, retreating three paces from them,
*''and what do you want with me ?"

*' Oh ! good heavens ! almost nothing, my dear Monsieur
Billot," said the man with the flute-like voice ; " only to
make a perquisition in your farm, that is all."
-4 *' A perquisition ?" exclaimed the astonished Billot.
4^ '' A perquisition," repeated the exempt.
■^ Billot cast a glance at his fowling-piece, which was hang-
• ing over the chimney.

"Since we have a National Assembly," said he, ''I
" thought that citizens were no longer exposed to such vex-
ations, which belong to another age, and which appertain
. ^ to a by-gone state of things. What do you want with me ?
I am a peaceable and loyal man."
.' I The agents of every police in the world have one habit
which is common to tliem all — that of replying to the
questions of their victims only while they are searching
their pockets. "While they are arresting them or tying
their hands behind, some apjoear to be moved by pity.
These tender-hearted ones are the most dangerous, inas-
much as they appear to be the most kind-hearted.

Tlie one who was exercising his functions in the house
of Farmer Billot was of the true Tapin and Desgre's school,
made up of sweets, having always a tear for those whom
they are persecuting, but who nevertheless do not use their
hands to wipe their eyes.

The one in question, although lieaving a deep sigh,
made a sign with his hand to the two sergeants, who ap-
proached Billot. Tlie worthy farmer sprung forward, and
stretched out his hand to seize his gun, but it was diverted
from the weapon — a doubly dangerous act at such a mo-
ment, as it might not only have killed the person about
to use it, but the one against whom it was to be pointed.
His hand was seized and imprisoned between two little

86 TAKING THE BASTILE.

hands, rendered strong by terror and powerful by supplica-
tion.

It was Catherine, who had run down-stairs on hearing
the noise, and had arrived in time to save her fatlicr from
committing the crime of rebelling against the constituted
authorities.

The first moment of anger having passed by, Billot no
longer offered any resistance. The exempt ordered that
he should be confined in a room on the ground floor, and
Catherine in a room on the first story. As to Mme. Billot,
she was considered so inoffensive that no attention was
paid to her, and she was allowed to remain in the kitchen.
After this, finding himself master of the place, the exempt
began to search the secretary, wardrobes, and chests of
drawers.

Billot, on finding himself alone, wished to make his
escape. But, like most of the rooms on the ground floor
of the farm house, the windows of the one he was im-
prisoned in were secured by iron bars. The gentleman in
black had, with a glance, observed these bars, while Billot,
who had had them placed there, had forgotten them.

Then, peeping tlirough the keyhole, he perceived the
exempt and his two acolytes, who were ransacking every-
thing throughout the house.

" Ualloo \" cried he, " what is the meaning of all this ?
What are yon doing there ? "

" You can very plainly see that, my dear Monsieur
Billot," said the exempt, ''we are seeking for something
which we have not yet found."

" But perhaps you are banditti, villains, regular thieves.
Who knows ? "

" Oh, sir ! " replied the exempt, through the door,
"you do us wrong. AVe are honest people as you are ;
only that we are in the pay of his majesty, and, con-
sequently, compelled to obey his orders."

" His majesty's orders ! " exclaimed Billot. " The king,
Louis XVI., has ordered you to search my secretary, to
turn everything topsy-turvy in my closets and my ward-
robes ? "

''Yes."

" His majesty," rejoined Billot, " who last year, when
there was such a friglitful famine that we were thinking
of eating our horses — his majesty, who two years ago, when

TAKING THE BASTILE. 87

the hail-storm on the 13th of July destroyed our whole
harvest, uud did not then deign to feel any anxiety about
US — what has he now to do with my farm, which he never
saw, or with me, whom he does not know ? "

" You will pardon me, sir," said the exempt, opening
the door a little, but with great precaution, and exhibiting
his order, signed by the lieutenant of police, and which,
according to the usual mode, was headed with these w*ords,
"In the king's name" — "his majesty has heard you
spoken of, although he may not be personally acquainted
with you ; therefore, do not refuse the honor which he
does you, and receive in a fitting manner those who pre-
sent themselves to you in his name.'"

And the exempt, with a polite bow, and a friendly wink
of the eye, closed the door again ; after which the exami-
nation Avas resumed.

Billot said not a word more, but crossed his arms and
paced up and down the room, like a lion in a cage. He
felt that he was caught, and in the power of this man.

The investigation was silently continued. These men
appeared to have dropped from the clouds. No one had
seen them but the laborer M'ho had been sent to fetch
Billot. Tlie dogs even in the yards hrd not barked on
their approach. Assuredly the chief of this expedition
must have been considered a skilful man, even by his own
fraternity. It was evidently not his first enterprise of this
nature.

Billot heard the meanings of his daughter, shut up in
the room above his ov/n, and he remembered her prophetic
words ; for there could not be a doubt that the persecution
the farmer had been subjected to had for its cause the
doctor's book.

At length the clock struck nine, and Billot, through
his grated windows, could count his laborers, as they re-
turned to the farmhouse to get their breakfast. On see-
ing this, he reflected, that, in case of any conflict, might,
if not right, was on his side. This conviction made the
blood boil in his veins. He had no longer the fortitude
to restrain his feelings ; and, seizing the door with both
hands, ho shook it so violently that, with two or three
efforts of the same nature, he would have burst off the
lock.

The police agents immediately opened the door, and

88 TAKING THE BASTILE.

they saw the farmer standing close by it, with threatening
looks. xVll was confusion in the house.

'' But, finally," cried Billot, " what is it you are seek-
ing for in my house ? Tell me, or zonnds ! I will make
you tell me."

The successive return of the laborers had not escaped
the experienced eye of such a man as the exempt. He
had counted the farm-servants, and had admitted to him-
self that in case of any combat, he would not be able to
retain possession of the field of battle. He therefore ap-
proached Billot with a demeanor more honeyed even than
before, and bowing almost to the ground, said :

" I will tell you what it is, dear Monsieur Billot, although
it is against our custom. \Yhat we are seeking for in your
house is a subversive book, an incendiary pamphlet, placed
nnder ban by our royal censors."

**A book — and in the house of a farmer who cannot
read ? » _

" What is there astonishing in that, if you are a friend
to the author, and he has sent it to you ? "

" I am not the friend of Doctor Gilbert ; I am merely
his humble servant. The friend of the doctor, indeed I
that would be too great an honor for a poor farmer like
me."

This inconsiderate outbreak, in which Billot betrayed
himself by acknowledging that he not only knew the
author, which was natural enough, he being his landlord,
but he knew the book, insured the agent's victory. The
latter drew himself up, assumed his most amiable air, and
touching Billot's arm, said, with a smile which appeared
to distend transversely over one half of his face :

" ' 'Tis thou hast named him.' Do you know that verse,
my dear Monsieur Billot ? "

" I know no verses."

" It is by Racine, a very great poet."

" Well, what is the moaning of tluit line ? " cried Billot.

"It means that you have betrayed yourself."

''Who, I ?"

" Yourself."

** And how so ?"

'* By being the first to mention ^fonsieur Gilbert, whom
we had the discretion not to name."

•' That is true." said Billot.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 89

** You iicknowledge it, then ? "

" I will do more than that."

** My dear Monsieur Billot, yon overwhelm us with
kindness ; what is it you will do ? "

" If it is that book you are hunting after, and I tell you
where that book is," rejoined the farmer, witii an uneasi-
ness which he could not altogether control, "yon Avill
leave off turning everything topsy-turvy here, will you
not ? "

The exempt made a sign to his two assistants.

" Most assuredly," replied the exempt, '* since it is that
book which is the object of our perquisition. *' Only,'*
continued he, with his smiling grimace, ''you may per-
haps acknowledge one copy of it, when you* may have ten
in your possession."

" I have only one, and that I swear to you."

" But it is this, we are obliged to ascertain by a most
careful search, dear Monsieur Billot," rejoined the ex-
empt. ''Have patience, therefore; in five minutes it
will be concluded. We are only poor sergeants obeying
the orders of the authorities, and you would not surely
prevent men of honor — there are men of honor in every
station of life, dear Monsieur Billot — you would not tlirow
any impediment in the way of men of honor, when they
are doing their duty."

The gentleman in black had adopted the right mode ;
this was the proper course for persuading Billot.

" Well, do it, then," replied the farmer, " but do it
quickly."

And he turned his back upon them.

The exempt then very gently again closed the door, and
more gently still turned the key in the lock, at which
Billot shrugged his shoulders in disdain, being certain of
pulling open the door whenever he might please.

On his side, the gentleman in black made a sign to the
Bergeants, who resumed their investigation, and they set
to work much more actively than before. Books, papers,
linen, were all opened, examined, unfolded.

Suddenly, at the bottom of a wardrobe which had been
completely emptied, they perceived a small oaken casket
bound with iron. The exempt darted upon it as a vulture
on his prey. At the mere sight, the scent, tlie handling
of this object, he undoubtedly at once recognized that

90 TAKING THE BASTILE.

wliich he was in search of, for he quickly concealed the
casket bcneatii his threadbare coat, and made a sign to the
two sergeants that his mission was affected.

Billot was again becoming impatient ; he stopped before
the locked door.

" AVliy, I tell you again that you will not find it, unless
I tell you where it is," he cried. " It is not worth the
while to tumble and destroy all my things for nothing. I
am not a conspirator. In the devil's name, listen tome !
Do you not hear what I am saying ? Answer me, or I will
set off for Paris, and will complain to the king, to the
Xational Assembly, to everybody."

In those days the king was always mentioned before the
people.

*' Yes, my dear Monsieur Billot, we hear you, and we
are quite ready to do justice to 3'our excellent reasoning.
Come, now, tell us where is this book ? And as we are
now convinced that you have only that single copy, we will
take it, and then we will withdraw and all will be over."

'' Well," replied Billot, "the book is in the possession
of an honest lad to whom T have given it, with the charge
of carrying it to a friend."

'' And what is the name of this honest lad ? " asked the
gentleman in black, in an insinuating tone."

*' Aiige Pitou ; he is a poor orphan whom 1 have taken
into my house from charity, and who does not even know
the subject of this book."

'' Thanks, dear Monsieur Billot," said the exempt.

They threw the linen back again into the wardrobe, and
locked it up again, but the casket was not there.

" And where is this amiable youth to be found ?"

"1 think I saw him as I returned, somewhere near the
bed of scarlet runners, close to the tunnel. Go, take the
book from him ; but take care not to do him any in-
jury."

** Injury ! Oh, my dear ^[onsieur Billot, how little you
know us. We would not harm even a fly."

And he went toward the indicated spot. When he got
near the scarlet runners he perceived Pitou, whose tall
stature made him appear more formidable than ho was in
reality. Thinking that the two sergeants would stand in
need of his assistance to master the young giant, the ex-
empt had taken off his cloak, had rolled the casket in it.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 91

and had hidden the whole in a secret corner, but where he
could easily regain possession of it.

But Catherine, who had been listening with her ear
glued, as it were, to the door, had vaguely heard the words
"book, doctor, and Pitou." Therefore, finding the storm
she had predicted had burst upon them, she had formed
the idea of attenuating its effects. It was then that she
prompted Pitou to say that he was the owner of the book.

We have related what then passed regarding it ; how
Pitou, bound and handcuffed by the exempt and his aco-
lytes, had been restored to liberty by Catherine, who had
taken advantage of the moment when the two sergeants
went into the house to fetch a table to write upon, and the
gentleman in black to take his cloak and casket.

We have stated how Pitou made his escape by jumping
over a hedge, but that which we did not state is, that, like
a man of talent, the exempt had taken advantage of this
flight.

And, in fact, the twofold mission intrusted to the ex-
empt having been accomplished, the flight of Pitou afforded
an excellent opportunity to the exempt and his two men
to make their escape also.

The gentleman in black, although he knew he had not
the slightest chance of catching the fugitive, excited the
two sergeants by his vociferations and his example to such
a degree, that on seeing them racing through the clover,
the wheat, and Spanish trefoil fields, one would have im-
agined that they were the most inveterate enemies of Pitou,
whose long legs they were most cordially blessing in their
hearts.

But Pitou had scarcely gained the cover of the wood, or
had even passed the skirts of it, when the confederates
halted behind a bush. During their race they had been
joined by two other sergeants who had kept themselves
concealed in the neighborhood of the farm, and wlio had
been instructed not to show themselves, unless summoned
by tlieir chief.

*' Upon my word," said the exempt, " it is very well that
our gallant young fellow had not the casket instead of the
book, for we should have been obliged to hire post-horses
to catch him. By Jupiter ! those legs of his are not men's
legs, but those of a stag."

*' Yes," replied one of the sergeants, ''but he has not

92 TAKING THE BASTILE.

got it, has he, Moiisieur Wolfsfoot ; for, on the contrary,
'tis you who have it."

** Undoubtedly, my friend, and liere it is,"' replied the
exempt, whose name we have now given for the first time,
or we sliould rather say the nickname which liad been given
to him on account of the lightness of his step and the
steal thiness of his walk.

" Then we are entitled to the reward which wa^^ prom-
ised us," observed one of the sergeants.

" Here it is," said the exempt, taking from liis pocket
four golden louis, which he divided among his four ser-
geants, without any distinction as, to those who had been
actively engaged in the perquisition or those who had
merely remained concealed.

" Long live the lieutenant of police ! " cried the ser-
geant.

*' There is no harm in crying, 'Long live the lieuten-
ant!'" said Wolfsfoot, **but every time you utter such
exclamations you should do it with discernment. It is
not the lieutenant who pavs."

'MVho isit, then?"

'' Some gentleman or lady friend of his, I know not
which, but who desires that his or her name may not be
mentioned in the business."

" I would wager that it is the person who wishes for the
casket," said one of the sergeants.

** Hear now, Rigold, my friend," said the gentleman in
black ; ** I have always affirmed that you are a lad replete
with perspicacity, but until the day when the perspicacity
shall produce its fruits by being amply recompensed, I
advise you to be silent. What we have now to do is to
make the best of our M'ay on foot out of this neighborhood.
That damned farmer has not the appearance of being very
conciliatory, and as soon as he discovers that the casket is
missing, he will despatch all his farm-laborers in pursuit
of us, and they arc fellows who can aim a gun as truly as
any of his majesty's Swiss Guards."

This opinion was doubtless that of the majority of the
party, for tiiey all five set oil at once, and, continuing to
remain within the border of the forest, which concealed
them from all eyes, they rapidly pursued their way, until,
after walking tliree quarters of a league, they came out
upon the public road.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 93

This precaution was not a useless one, for Catherine had
scarcely seen the gentleman in black and his two at-
tendants disappear in pursuit of Pitou, than, full of con-
fidence in him whom they pursued, who, unless some
accident should happen to him, would lead them a long
dance, she called her husbandmen, who were well aware
that something strange was going on, although they were
ignorant of the positive facts, to tell them to open her
door for her.

The laborers instantly obeyed her. and Catherine, again
free, hastened to set her father at liberty.

Billot appeared to be in a dream. Instead of at once
rushing out of the room, he seemed to walk mistrustfully,
and returned from the door into the middle of the apart-
ment. It might have been imagined that he did not dare
to remain in the same spot, and yet, that he was afraid of
casting his eyes upon the articles of furniture which had
been broken open and emptied by the sergeants.

*'But," cried he, on seeing his daughter, '*' tell me, did
they take the book from him ? "

*'I believe so, father," she replied ; " but they "did not
take him."

"' "Whom do you mean ? "

" Pitou ; he escaped from them, and they are still
running after him ; they must already have got to Cayolles
or Vauciennes."

'•' So much the better ! Poor fellow ! It is I who have
brought this upon him."

" Oh, fatiier, do not feel at all uneasy about him, but
think only of what we have to do. Pitou, you may rest
assured, will get out of this scrape ; but what disorder —
good Heaven ! only look, mother ! "

" Oh ! my linen wardrobe ! " cried Mme. Billot ; " they
have not even respected my linen wardrobe — what villains
they must be ! "

" They have searched the wardrobe Avhere the linen was
kept ! " exclaimed Billot.

And he rushed toward the wardrobe, which the exempt,
as we have before stated, had carefully closed again, and
plunged his hands into piles of towels and table napkins,
all confusedly luiddled together.

" Oh !" cried he, " it cannot be possible ! "

** What are yon looking for, father? " inquired Catherine.

$i TAKING THE BASTILE.

Billot gazed around him as if completely bewildered.

'* SeiU'ch ! eeiu'cli if yon cau see it anywhere ! But no ;
not in that chest of drawers — not in that secretary ! Be-
sides, it was there — there — it was myself who put it there.
I saw it there only yesterday. It was not the book they
were seeking for, the wretches ! but the casket."

"What casket ?" asked Catherine.

*' Why, you know well enough."

"What — Doctor Gilbert's casket?" inquired Mme.
Billot, who always, in matters of transcendent importance,
allowed others to speak and act.

"Yes, Doctor Gilbert's casket," cried Billot, plunging
his fingers into his tiiick hair ; " that casket which was so
precious to him ! "

" You terrify me, my dear father," said Catherine.

** Unfortunate man that I am!" cried Billot, with
furious anger ; " and I, who had not in the sliglitest
imagined such a thing — I, who did not even for a moment
think of that casket ! Oh, what will the doctor say ?
What will he think of me ? That I am a traitor, a coward,
a miserable wretch ! "

" But, good Heaven ! what did this casket contain,
father?"

" I do not know ; but this I know, that I had engaged,
even at the hazard of my life, to keep it safe ; and I ought
to have allowed myself to be killed in order to defend it."

And Billot made a gesture of such despair that his wife
and daughter started back with terror.

" Oh, God ! oh, God ! are you losing your reason, my
poor father ? " said Catherine.

And she burst into tears.

" Answer me, then," she cried ; " for the love of Heaven,
answer me,"

*' Pierre, my friend," said Mme. Billot, " answer your
daughter — answer your wife."

** My horse ! my horse I " cried the farmer ; " bring out
my horse ! "

" Where are you going, father ? "

" To let the doctor know — the doctor must be informed
of this."

" But where will you find him ?"

" At Paris. Did you not read in the letter ho wrote to
08 that he was going to Paris ? My horse 1 iny horse I **

TAKING THE BASTILE. 95

" And yon will leave us thus, my dear father ! You
will leave us iu snch a moment as this ? You will leave
us full of anxiety and anguish ?"

"It must be so, my child; it must be so," said the
farmer, taking his daughter's face between his hands and
convulsively fixing his lips upon it. " ' If ever you should
lose this casket,' said the doctor to me, *or, rather, should
it ever be surreptitiously taken from you, the instant you
discover the robbery, set off at once, Billot, and inform
me of it, wherever I may be. Let nothing stop you, not
even the life of a man.'"

" Good Lord ! what can this casket contain ? "

" Of that I know nothing ; all that I know is, that it
was placed under my care, and that I have allowed it to
be taken from me. Ah ! here is my horse. From the son,
who is at college, I sliall learn where to find the father."

And kissing his wife and daughter for the last time, the
farmer jumped into his saddle and galloped across the
country, in the direction of the high-road to Paris.

CHAPTER IX.

Let us return to Pitou.

Pitou was urged onward by the two most powerful stim-
ulants known in this great world — Fear and Love.

Fear whispered to him in direct terms :

*' You may be either arrested or beaten. Take care of
yourself, Pitou."

And that sufficed to make him run as swiftly as a roe-
buck.

Love had said to him, in the voice .of Catherine :

''Escape quickly, my dear Pitou."

And Pitou had escaped.

These two stimulants combined, as we have said, had
such an effect upon him that Pitou did not merely run,
Pitou absolutely fiew.

How useful did Pitou's long legs, which appeared to be
knotted to him, and his enormous knees, which looked so
ungainly in a ballroom, prove to him in the open country,
when his heart, enlarged with terror, beat three pulsations
in a second I

96 TAKING THE BASTILE.

M. de Charny, with liis small feet, his elegantly formed
knees, and his symmetrically shaped calves, could not
have run at such a rate as that.

Pitou recalled to his mind that pretty table, in which a
stag is represented weeping over his slim shanks, reflected
in a fountain ; and although he did not bear on his fore-
head the ornament which the quadruped deemed some
compensation for his slender legs, he reproached himself
for having so much despised his stilts.

For such was the appellation which JVIme. Billot gave
to Pitou's legs, when Pitou looked at them, standing be-
fore a looking-glass.

Pitou, therefore, continued making his way through
the wood, leavi]ig Poyolles on his right and Yvors on his
left, turning round at every corner of a bush, to see, or,
rather, to listen, for it was long since he had seen any-
thing of his persecutors, who had been distanced at the
outset by the brilliant proof of swiftness Pitou had given
in placing a space of at least a thousand yards between
them and himself, a distance which he was increasing
every moment.

AVhy was Atalanta married ? Pitou would have entered
the lists with her ; and to have excelled Hippomenes he
would not assuredly have needed to employ, as she did,
the subtei'fuge of the three golden apples.

It is true, as we have already said, that M. Wolfsfoot's
agents, delighted at having possession of their booty, cared
not a fig as to what became of Pitou ; but Pitou knew
not this.

Ceasing to be pursued by the reality, he continued to
be pursued by the shadows.

As to the black-clothed gentlemen, they had that con-
fidence in themselves which renders human beings lazy.

" Run, run ! " cried they, thrusting their hands into
their pockets, and making the reward which M. Wolfsfoot
had given them jingle in them, "run, good fellow, run ;
we can always find you again should we want you.''

Which, we may say in passing, far from being a vain
boast, was the precise truth.

And Pitou continued to run as if he had heard the aside
of M. "Wolfsfoot'a agents.

When he had, by scientifically altering his course, and
turning and twisting as do the wild denizens of the forest.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 97

to throw the hounds off the scent, when he had don bled
and turned so as to form such a maze that Nimrod himself
would not have been able to unravel it, he at once made
up his mind as to his route, and taking a sharp turn to
the right, went in a direct line to the high-road which
leads from Villers-Cotterets to Paris, near the heatli of
Gondreville.

Having formed this resolution, he bounded through the
thicket, and after running for a little more than a quarter
of an hour, he perceived the road inclosed by its yellow
sand, and bordered with its green trees.

An hour after his departure from the farm he was on
the king's highway.

He had run about four leagues and a half during that
hour, as much as any rider could expect from an active
horse going a good round trot.

He cast a glance behind him. There was nothing on
the road.

He cast a glance before him. There were two women
upon asses. Pi ton had got hold of a small work on
mythology, with eugraviugs, belonging to young Gilbert ;
mythology was much studied in those days.

The history of the gods and goddesses of the Grecian
Olympus formed part of the education of young persons.
By dint of looking at the engravings, Piton had become
acquainted with mythology. He had seen Jupiter meta-
morphose himself into a bull, to carry off Europa into a,
swan, tliat he might approach and make love to the
daughter of King Tyndarus. He had, in short, seen other
gods transforming themselves into forms more or less
picturesque; but that one of his majesty's police officers
had transformed himself into an ass, had never come within
tlie scope of his erndition. King Midas himself had never
had anything of the animal but the ears — and he was a
king — he made gold at will — he had, therefore, money
enough to purchase the whole skin of the quadruped.

Somewhat reassured by what he saw, or, rather, by what
he (lid not see, Piton threw himself down on the grassy
bank of the roadside, wiped with his sleeve his broad red
face, and thus luxuriously reclining, he yielded himself
up to the voluptuousness of perspiring in tranquillity.

But tlio sweet cnianations from the clover and marjoram
Would not make Pitou forget the pickled pork made by

5 — Dumas — Vol. IX.

08 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Mnie. Billot, and the quarter of a six-pound loaf -vvhich
Catherine iilloLted to liiui at every meal — that id to say,
three times a day.

This bread, which at that time cost four sons and a half
a pound — a mosi exorbitant price, equivalent at least to
nine sous in our day — this bread, Avhich was so scarce
throughout France, and which, when it was eatable, passed
for the fabulous brioche * which the Duchess of Polit^nac
advised the Parisians to feed upon Avlien flour should al-
together fail them.

Pitou, therefore, said to liiniself, philosophically, that
Mile. Catlierine Avas the most generous princess in the
world, and that Father l>illot's farm was the most sumptu-
ous palace in the universe.

Then, as the Israelites on the banks of the Jordan,
he turned a dying eye toward tlic East — that is to say,
in the direction of that thrice-happy farm, and sighed
heavily.

But sighing is not so disagreeable an operation to a man
who stands in need of taking breath, after a violent race.

Pitou breathed more freely when sighing, and he felt
his ideas, which for a time had been much confused and
agitated, return to him gradually with his breath.

*' Why is it," reasoned he with himself, " that so many
extraordinary events have happened to me in so short a
space of time ? Why should I have met with more ac-
cidents within the last three days than during the whole
course of my previous life ?

"It is because I dreamed of a cat that wanted to fly at
me," continued Pitou.

And he made a gesture signifying that the source of all
his misfortunes had been thus already pointed out to him.

"Yes," added he, after a moment's reflection, " Init
this is not the logic of my venerable friend tlie A])be
Fortier. It is not because I dreamed of an irritated cat
that all these adventures have happened to me. Dreams are
only given to a man as a sort of warning, and this is why
an author said, ' Thou hast been dreaming — beware !
C(WG somniasli ! '

" Somniasti," said Pitou, doubtingly, and with some-
what of alarm, "am I, then, again committing a l)arl)ar-

* A fiortof dry cake made of flour, ep^gs, and .safTron, wliich
the Parisians eat with their coffeo and milk. — Tuanslatou.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 99

ism ? Oh, no ; I am ouly making an elision ; it was
somniavisti which I should have said, in grammatical
language.

"It is astonishing," cried Pitou, considering himself
admiringly, '• how well I understand Latin since I no
longer study it."

And after this glorification of himself, Pitou resumed
his journey.

Pitou walked on very quickly, though he was much
tranquilized. His pace was somewhat about two leagues
an hour.

The result of this waa that two hours after he had re-
commenced his walk, Pitou had got beyond Nanteuil, and
was getting ou toward Dammartin.

Suddenly the ears of Pitou, as acute as those of an Osage
Indian, were struck with the distant sound of a liorse's
foot upon the paved road.

"Oh!" cried Pitou, scanning the celebrated verse of
Virgil :

" ' Quadru pedante putrem soui tu quatit ungula canipum.'"

iAnd he looked behind him. ,
N^But he sav,^ nothing. -J:

Could it be the asses which he had passed at Levignon,
and which had now come on at a gallop ? Ko ; for the
iron hoof, as the poet calls it, rang out upon the paved
road ; and Pitou, whether at Haramont or at Villcrs-
Cotterets, had never known an ass, excepting that of Mother
Sabot, that was shod, and even this was because Mother
Sabot performed the duty of letter-carrier between Villcrs-
Cotterets and Crespy.

He, therefore, momentarily forgot the noise he had
heard, to return to his reflections.

Who could these men in black be who had questioned
him about Dr. Gilbert, who had tied his hands, who had
pursued him, and whom he had at length so completely
distanced.

"Where could these men have sprung from, for they
were altogether unknown in the district ?

What could they have in particular to do with Pitou ?
He who had never seen them, and who, consequently, did
not know them.

100 TAKING THE BASTILE.

How then, was it. as he did not know them, that they
had known him 'i Why had MUc, Catherine told him to
set oil for Paris ? and why, in order to facilitate his journey,
had she given him a lonis of forty-eight francs ? That is
to say, two hundred and forty pounds of hread, at four
sous a pound. Why, it Avas enough to supply him with
food for eiglity days, or three months, if he would stint
his rations somewhat.

Could Mile. Catherine suppose that Pitou was to re-
main eighty days absent from the farm ?

Pitou suddenly started.

*' Oh ! oh ! ^' ho exclaimed, ''again that horse's hoofs.
This time," said Pitou, '' I am not mistaken. The
noise I hear is positively that of a horse galloping. I shall
see it when he gets to the top of yon hill."

Pitou had scarcely spoken, when a horse appeared at
the top of a hill he had just left behind him, that is to say,
at the distance of about four hundred yards from the spot
on which he stood.

Pitou, who would not allow that a police agent could
have transmogrified himself into an ass, admitted at once
that he might have got on horseback to regain the prey
that had escaped him.

Terror, from which he had been for some time relieved,
again seized on Pitou, and immediately his legs became
even longer and more intrepid than wlien he had mode
such marvelous good use of them some two hours pre-
viously.

Tlierefore, without reflecting, without looking behind,
without endeavoring to conceal his flight, calculating on
the excellence of his steel-like sinews, Pitou, with a tre-
mendous leap, sprung across the ditch which ran by the
roadside, and began a rapid course in the direction of
Ermenonville. Pitou did not know anything of Ermenon-
ville, he only saw upon the horizon the summits of some
tall trees, and he said to liimself :

" If I reach those trees, which arc undoubtedly on the
border of some forest, I am saved."

And he ran toward Ermenonville.

On this occasion, he had to outvie a horse in running.
Pitou had no longer legs but wings.

And his rapidity was increased after having run some
hundred yards, for Pitou had cast a glance behind him.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 101

and had seen the horseman oblige his horse to take the
same immense leap whieh he had taken over the ditch on
the roadside.

From that moment there could be no longer a doubt in
the mind of the fugitive that the horseman was, in reality,
in pursuit of him, and, consequently, the fugitive had in-
creased his speed, never again turning his head for fear of
losing time. What most urged him on at that moment was
not the clattering on the paved road — that no' was dead-
ened by the clover and the fallow fields ; what nost urged
him on was a sort of cry which pursued him, the last syl-
lable of his name pronounced by the horseman, a sort
of hou ! hou ! which appeared to be uttered angrily, and
which reached him on the wings of the wind, which he
was endeavoring to outstrip.

But after having maintained this sharp race during ten
minutes, Pitou began to feel that his chest became op-
pressed— the blood rushing to his head — his eyes began to
wander. It seemed to him that his knees became more
and more developed — that his loins were filling with small

Eebbles. From time to time he stumbled over tlie furrows ;
e who usually raised his feet so high when running, that
every nail in the soles of his shoes wore visible.

At last the horse, created superior to man in the art
of running, gained on the biped Pitou, who, at the same
time, heard the voice of the horseman, who no longer
cried, ''Hou! hou!" but clearly and distiuctiv, "Pitou!
Pitou!"

All was over. All was lost.

However, Pitou endeavored to continue the race. It had
become a sort of mechanical movement. Suddenly, his
knees failed him ; he staggered and fell at full length with
his face to the ground.

But at the same time that he thus fell he fully resolved
not to get up again — at all events of his own free will;
and lie received a lash from a horsewhip, which wound
round his loins.

With a tremendous oath, which was not unfamiliar to
his ears, a well-known voice cried out to him :

'' How now, you stupid fellow ! how now, you simple-
ton ! have you sworn to founder Cadet ? "

The name of Cadet at once dispelled all Pitou's suspense.

''Ah I'' cried he, turning himself round, so that iu-

102 TAKING THE BASTILE.

stead of lying upon his face he lay npon his back — '* all ! I
hear the voice of Monsieur Billot."

It was in fact, Goodman Billot. When Pitou was well
assured of his identity, he assumed a sitting posture.

The farmer, on his side, had pulled uj) Cadet, covered
witii flakes of foam.

** Ah ! dear Monsieur Billot," exclaimed Pitou, " how
kind it is of you to ride in this way after nie. I swear to
you 1 should have returned to the farm after having ex-
pended the double-louis Mademoiselle Catherine gave me.
But since you are here, take back your double-louis — for of
course it must be yours — and let us return to the farm."

'•'A thousand devils!" exclaimed Billot. "^ Who was
thinking of the farm ? Where are the mouchards 9 "

''The mouchards?" inquired Pitou, who did not com-
prehend the meaning of this word, which had only just
been admitted into the vocabulary of our language.

** Yes, the moucliards,"* rejoined Billot — ''the men
in black. Do you not understand me ?"

" Ah ! the men in black. You will readily understand,
my dear Monsieur Billot, that 1 did not amuse myself by
waiting for them."

"Bravo ! You have left them behind, then ?*'

" Why, I flatter myself, after the race I have run, it was
to be expected, as it appears to me.'"

" Then, if you were so sure of your affair, what the
devil made you run at such a rate ?"

" Because I thought it was their chief who, not to be
outwitted, was pursuing me on horseback. Well, well !
You are not quite so simple as I thought you. Then,
as the road is clear, up, up, and away for Dammar tin ! "

" What do you mean by * up, up ? ' "

"Yes, get up and come witli me."

" We are going, then, to Dammartin ?"

" Yes. I will borrow a horse there of old Lefranc. I
will leave Cadet with him, for he can go no further, and
to-night we will push on to Paris."

" Be it so, Monsieur Billot — be it so."

" Well, then, up— up ! "

Pitou made an effort to obey him.

* Spies — common informers — men who live by betraying
others. —Translator.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 103

ee

I should much wish to do as 3-011 desire, "said he ; " but,
my dear Monsieur Billot, I canuot/'

'' How — you cannot get up ?"

"Xo."

*' But just now you could manage to turn round."

'' Oh, just now ! that was by no means astonishing. I
heard your voice, and at the same moment I received a
swinging cut across the back. But such things can only
succeed once. At present lam accustomed to your voice ;
and as to your whip, I feel well assured that you can only
apply it to managing our poor Cadet, wlio is almost as
heated as I am."

Pitou's logic, which, after all, was nothing more than the
Abbe Fortier's, persuaded, and even affected, tlie farmer.

" I have not time to sympathize in your fate," said he to
Pitou ; " but, come now, make an effort and get up behind

me."

" Why," said Pitou, '' that would be, indeed, the way to
founder Cadet at once, poor beast ! "

**Pooh ! in half an hour we shall be at old Lefranc's."

''But, it appears to me, dear Monsieur Billot," said
Pitou, "that it would be altogether useless for me to go
with you to old Lefranc's."

" And why so ? "

''Because, although you have business at Dammartin,
I have no business there — not I."

" Yes ; but I want you to come to Paris with me. In
Paris you will be of use tome. You have good stout fists,
and I am certain it will not be long before hard knocks
will be given there."

"Ah ! ah !" cried Pitou, not much delighted with this
prospect ; "do you believe that ?"

And he managed to get on Cadet's back ; Billot dragged
him up as he would a sack of flour.

The good farmer soon got on the high-road again, and
so well managed his bridle, whip and spurs, that in less
than half an hour, as he had said, they reached Dammartin.

Billot had entered the town by a narrow lane, which was
well known to him. ^ He soon arrived at Father Lefranc's
farmhouse ; and leaving Pitou and Cadet in the middle
of the farmyard, he ran straight to the kitchen, where
Father Lefranc, who was setting out to take a turn round
his fields, was buttoning his gaiters.

104 TiUCING THE BASTILE.

**' Quick — quick, my friend ! " cried Billot, before Le-
frauc had recovered from the astouishmeut which his
arrival had produced, '* tlie strongest horse you have !'*

''That is Margot,'' replied Lefranc ; "and, fortunately,
she is already saddled ; I was going out."

" Well, Margot be it, then ; only, it is possible I may
founder her, aud of that 1 forewarn you."

** "What, founder Margot ! and Avhy so, I ask ?"

*' Because it is necessary that I should be in Paris this
very night."

And he made a masonic sign to Lefranc, whicli was
most significant.

** Well, founder Margot if you will," said old Lefranc ;
"you shall give me Cadet if you do."

''Agreed."

*' A glass of wine ? "

"Two."

*' But it seemed to me that you were not alone ?"

" jSTo ; I have a worthy lad there whom I am taking
with me, and who is so fatigued that he had not the
strength to come in here. Send out something to him."

" Lnmediatcly, immediately," said the farmer.

In ten minutes the two old comrades had each managed
to soak in a bottle of good wine, and Pitou had bolted a
two-pound loaf with half a ])ound of bacon. While ho
was eating, one of the farm-servants, a good fellow, rubbed
him down with a handful of clean straw, to take the mud
from his clothes, and with as much care as if he had been
cleaning a favorite horse.

Thus freshened up and invigorated, Pitou had also some
wine given to him, taken from a third bottle, which was
the sooner emptied from Pitou's having his share from it ;
after which Billot mounted Margot, and Pitou, stiff as a
pair of compasses, was lifted on behind him.

The poor beast, being thereunto urged by whip and
spur, immediately trotted off bravely, under this double
load, on the road to Paris, and without ceasing, whisked
away the flies with its formidable tail, the thick hair of
which threw the dust of tho road on Pitou's back, and
every now and then lashed his calfless lcgs,which were ex-
posed to view, las stockings iuiviug fallen down to his
ankles.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 105

CHAPTER X.

It is eight leagues from Dammartin to Paris. The first
four leagues were tolerably well got over ; but after they
reached Bourget, poor Margot's legs at length began to
grow somewhat stiff. Night was closing in.

On arriving at La Villette, Billot thought he perceived
a great light extending over Paris.

He made Pitou observe the red light, which rose above
the horizon.

*' You do not see, then," said Pitou to him, '' that there
are troops bivouacking, and that they have lighted their
fires."

" What mean you by troops ? " cried Billot.

" There are troops here," said Pitou ; '" why should there
not be some further on ? "

And, in fact, on examining attentively, Father Billot
saw, on looking to the right, that the plain of St. Denis
was dotted over with black-looking detachments of in-
fantry and cavalry, which were marching silently in the
darkness.

Their arms glistened occasionally with the j^ale reflec-
tion of the stars.

Pitou, whose nocturnal excursions in the woods had
accustomed him to see clearly in the dark — Pitou pointed
out to his master pieces of artillery, which had sunk up to
the axles in the middle of the muddy plain.

" Oh ! oh !" cried Billot, ''there is something new up
yonder, then. Let us make haste ! Let us make haste ! "

" Yes, yes ; there is a fire out yonder," said Pitou, wlio
had raised himself on Margot's back. " Look ! look !
Do you not see the sjiarks ? "

Margot stopped. Billot jumped off her back, and ap-
proaching a group of soldiers in blue-and-yellow uniform,
who were bivouacking under the trees by the roadside :

" Comrades," said he to them, *' can you tell me what
there is going on at Paris ? "

But the soldiers merely replied to him by oaths, which
they uttered in the German language.

106 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"What the devil is it tliej sa}^ ?" inquired Billot, ad-
dressing Pitoii.

" It is not Latin, dear Monsieur Billot/' replied Pitou,
trembling ; "and that is all I can affirm to you."

Billot reflected, and looked again.

" Simpleton that I was," said he, ** to attempt to ques-
tion these Kainsei'liks."

And in his curiosity he remained motionless in the
middle of the road.

An officer went up to him.

*' Bass on yonr roat," said he ; " bass on quickly."

"Your pardon, captain," replied Billot j "but I am
going to Paris."

" Veil, mien Gott ; vot den ? "

" And as I see that yon are drawn up across the road, I
fear that we cannot get throngh the barriers."

"Yon can get drough."

And Billot remounted his mare, and went ou.

But it was only to fall in the midst of the Bercheur
Hussars, who encumbered the street of La Villette.

This time he had to deal with his own couutrymen. He
questioned them with more success.

"Sir," said he, " what has there happened at Paris, if
you please ? "

"That your headstrong Parisians," replied the hussar,
" will have their Xecker ; and they are firing musket-shots
at us, as if we had anything to do with the matter."

" Have Necker ! " exclaimed Billot. " They had lost
him, then ? "

" Assuredly, since the king had dismissed him."

" The king had dismissed him !" exclaimed Billot, with
the stupefaction of a devotee calling out against a
Bacrilege ; " the king has dismissed that groat man ? "

" Oh ! in good faith he has, my worthy sir : and,
more than that, this great man is now on his road to
Brussels."

" Well, then, in that Ci\ee we shall see some fuu." cried
Billot, in a tremendous voice, without caring for the
danger he was incurring by thus preaching insurrection iu
the midst of twelve or lifteen hundred royalist sabers.

And he again mounted Margot, spurring her ou with
cruel violence, until ho reached the barrier.

As he advanced he perceived that the lire was increasing

TAKING THE BASTILE. 107

and becoming redder. A long column of flame ascended
from the barrier toward the sky.

It was the barrier itself that was burning.

A howling, furious mob, in which there were many
women, and who, as usual, threatened and vociferated
more loudly than the men, were feeding the fire with pieces
of wainscoting, and chairs and tables, and other articles
of furniture belonging to the clerks employed to collect
the city dues.*

Upon the road were Hungarian and German regiments,
who, leaning upon their grounded arms, were looking on
with vacant eyes at this scene of devastation.

Billot did not allow this rampart of flames to arrest his
progress. He spurred on Margot through the fire.
Margot rushed through the flaming ruins ; but when she
had reached the inner side of the barrier she was obliged
to stop, being met by a crowd of people coming from the
center of the city, toward the suburbs. Some of them
were singing, others shouting, ''To arms ! "

Billot had the appearance of being what he really was,
a good farmer coming to Paris on his own affairs. Perhaps
he cried out rather too loudly, " Make room ! make
room ! " but Pitou repeated the words so politely, " Room,
if you please ; let us pass ! " that the one was a corrective
of the other. No one had any interest in preventing Billot
from goiug to his affairs, and he was allowed to pass.

Margot, during all this, had recovered her wind and
strength ; the fire had singed her coat. All these unac-
customed shouts appeared greatly to amaze her, and Billot
was obliged to restrain the efforts she now made to advance,
for fear of trampling under foot some of the numerous
spectators whom curiosity had drawn together before their
doors to see the gate on fire, and as many curious people
who were running from their doors toward the burning
toll-house.

Billot went on pushing through the crowd, pulling
Margot first to the right, and then to the left, twisting
and turning in every direction, until they reached the
boulevard ; but having got thus far, he was obliged to stop.

* The cit3' of Paris is encircled by a wall, ami at every entrance
to it is a custom-house, where people coming from the country are
obliged to give an account of tiie prochu^e — poultry, meal, butter,
eggs, etc. — and pay the city dues upon them. — Translator.

108 TAKING THE BASTILE.

A procession was then passing, coming from the Bastile,
and going toward Lhc phice ca,lled tlie Garde Meuble, those
two masses of stone which in those days formed a girdle
which attached the center of the city to its out-works.

This procession, which obstructed the whole of the
boulevard, was following a bier, on this bier were borne
two busts ; tiie one veiled with black crape, the other
crowned with flowers.

The bust covered Avith crape was that of Keeker, a
minister who had not been disgraced, but dismissed. The
one crowned with flowers was that of the Duke of Orleans,
who had openly espoused at court the party of the Geue-
vese economists.

Billot immediately inquired what was the meaning of
this procession. He was informed that it was a popular
homage paid to M. Necker and to his defender, the Duke
of Orleans.

Billot had been born in a part of the country where the
name of a Duke of Orleans had been venerated for a
century and a half. Billot belonged to the new sect of
philosoplicrs, and considered Necker not only as a great
minister, but as an apostle of humanity.

This was more than sufficient to excite Billot, lie
jumped off Ms horse, without being exactly aware of what
ho was about to do, shouting, " Long live the Duke of
Orleans ! Long live Necker ! " and he then mingled with
the crowd. Having once got back into the thick of the
throng, all personal liberty was at an end at once ; as every
one knows, the use of our free will at once ceases. "We
wish what the crowd wishes, we do what it does. Billot,
moreover, allowed himself the more easily to be drawn into
this movement, from being near the head of the pro-
cession.

The mob kept on vociferating most strenuously, ''Long
live Necker ! no more foreign troops ! Down with foreign
troops ! '*

Billot mingled his stentorian voice with all these voices.

A superiority, be it of whatever nature it may, is always
appreciated by the people. The Parisian of the suburbs,
with his faint, hoarse voice, enfeebled by inanition or Avoru
out by drinking, duly appreciated the full, rich, and
sonorous voice of Billot, aiid readily made way for him, so
that without being too much elbowed, too much pushed

TAKING THE BASTILE. 109

abont, too much pressed by the crowd. Billot afc length
managed to get up close to the bier.

Aboat tea minutes after this, one of the bearers, whose
enthusiasm had been greater than his strength, yielded
his place to Billot.

As has been seen, the honest farmer had rapidly obtained
promotion.

The day before he had been merely the propagator of
the principles contained in Dr. Gilbert's pamphlet, and
now he had become one of the instruments of the great
triumph of Necker and the Duke of Orleans.

But he had scarcely attained this post when an idea
crossed his mind.

** What had become of Pitou — what had become of
Margot ? "

Though carefully bearing his portion of the bier, he
gave a glance behind him, and by the light of the torches
which accompanied the procession, by the light of the
lamps which illuminated every window, he perceived in
the midst of the procession a sort of ambulating eminence,
formed of five or six men, who were gesticulating and
shouting.

Amid these gesticulations and shouts it was easy to dis-
tinguish the voice and recognize the long arms of his fol-
lower, Pitou.

Pitou was doing all he could to protect Margot ; but
despite all his efforts, Margot had been invaded. Margot
no longer bore Billot and Pitou, a very honorable and
sufficient burden for the poor animal.

Mai'got was bearing as many people as could manage to
get upon her back, her croup, her neck ; Margot looked in
tlie obscurity of the night, which always magnifies tlie ap-
pearance of objects, like an elephant loaded with hunters
going to attack a tiger.

Five or six furious fellows had taken jjossession of
Margot's broad back, vociferating, ''Long live Xecker ! '*
"Long live the Duke of Orleans!" "Down with the
foreigners ! " to which Pitou replied :

" You will break Margot's back ! "

The enthusiasm was general.

Billot for a moment entertained the idea of rushing to
the aid of Pitou and poor Margot ; but he reflected that if
he should only for a moment resign the honor of carrying

110 TAKING THE BASTILE.

oue of the corners of the bier, he would not be able to
regain his triumphal post. Then, he reflected that by the
barter he had agreed to with old Lefranc, that of giving
him Cadet for Margot, Margot belonged to him, and that
should any accident happen to Margot, it was, after all,
but an affair of some three or four hundred livres, and that
he. Billot, was undoubtedly rich enough to make the sac-
rifice of three or four hundred livres to his country.

During this time the procession kept on advancing ; it
had moved obliquely to the left and had gone down the
Kue Montmartre to the Place des Victoires. When it
reached the Palais Eoyal some great impediment prevented
its passing on. A troop of men with green leaves in their
hats were shouting, *' To arms !"

It was necessary to reconnoiter. "Were these men who
blocked up the Rue Vivienne friends or enemies ? Green
was the color of the Count d'Artois. Why, then these
green cockades ?

After a minute's conference, all was exi')lained.

On learning the dismissal of Xecker, a young man had
issued from the Cafe Foy, had jumped upon a table in the
garden of tlie Palais Royal, and taking a jDistol from his
breast, had cried, "■ To arms ! ''

On hearing this cry, all the persons who were walking
tliere had assembled round him and had shouted, ** To
arms ! "

We have already said that all the foreign regiments had
been collected around Paris. One might have imagined
that it was an invasion by the Austrian?. The names of
those regiments alarmed the ears of all Frenchmen ; they
were Reynac, Salis, Samade, Diesbach, Esterhazy, Roe-
mer ; the very naming of them was sufficient to make the
crowd understand that they were the names of enemies.
The young man named them ; he announced that the Swiss
were encamped in the Champs Elysees with four pieces of
artillery, and that they were to enter Paris that same
night, preceded by the dragoons, commanded by Prince
Lambesq. He proposed a new cockade wliich was not
theirs, snatched a leaf from a chestnut tree, and placed
it in the band of his hat. Upon the instant every one
present followed his example. Throe tliousand persons
had, in ten minutes, unleaved the trees of the Palais
Koyal.

TAKING THE BASTILE. m

That morning no one knew tlie name of that young man ;
in the evening it was in every mouth.

That young man's name was Camille Desmoiilins.

The two crowds recognized each other as friends ; they
fraternized, they embraced each other, and then the pro
cession continued on its way.

During the momentary lialt we liave just described, the
curiosity of those who had not been able to discover, even
by standing on tiptoe, what was going on, had overloaded
Margot with an increasing burden. Every inch on which
a foot could be placed had been invaded, so tliat when the
crowd again moved on, the poor beast was literally crushed,
by the enormous weight which overwhelmed her.

At the corner of the Rue Richelieu Billot cast a look
behind him ; Margot had disappeared.

He heaved a deep sigh, addressed to the memory of the
unfortunate animal, then, soon recovering from his grief,
and calling up the whole power of his voice, he three
times called Pitou, as did the Romans of aucient times,
when attending the funeral of a relative. He imagined
that he heard issuing from the center of the crowd a voice
which replied to his own, but that voice was lost among
the confused clamors which ascended toward heaven, half
threatening, half with applauding acclamations.

Tlie jorocession still moved on.

All the shops were closed ; but all the windows were
open, and from every window issued cries of encourage-
ment which fell like blessings on the heads of those who
formed this great ovation.

In this way they reached the Place Vendome.

But on arriving there the procession was obstructed by
an unforeseen obstacle.

Like to those trunks of trees rooted up by a river that
has overflown its banks, and which, on encountering the
piers of a bridge, recoil upon the wreck of matter which
IS following them, the popular army found a detachment
of the Royal Germans on the Place Vendome.

These foreign soldiers were dragoons, who, seeing an in-
undation streaming from the Rue St. Honore, and which
began to overflow the Place Vendome, loosened their horses'
reins, who, impatient at having been stationed there dur-
ing five hours, at once galloped furiously forward, charging
upon the people.

112 TAKING THE BASTILE.

The bearers o* tlie bier received tlio first shock, aad
were thrown down beneath their burden. A tSuvoyard,
who was walking before Billot, was the first to spring to
his feet again, raised the efligy of the Duke of Orleans, and,
placing it on the end of a stick, held it above liis head,
crying :

*' Long live the Duke of Orleans ! " whom he had never
Been; and ''Long live Necker I " whom he did not
know.

Billot was about to do as much for the bust of Necker,
but found himself forestalled. A young man, about
twenty-four or twenty-five years old, and sufficiently well
dressed to deserve the title of a beau, had followed it with
his eyes, and which he could do more easily than Billot,
who was carrying it ; and as soon as the bust had fallen to
the ground, he had rushed toward it and seized upon it.

The good farmer, therefore, vainly endeavored to find it
on the ground ; the bust of Necker was already on the
point of a sort of pike, and side by side with that of the
Duke of Orleans, rallied around them a good portion of
the procession.

Suddenly a great light illuminates the square ; at the
same moment a violent explosion is heard ; the balls whiz
through the air ; something heavy strikes Billot on the
forehead; he falls. At first Billot imagined himself killed.

But as his sensations had not abandoned him ; as, ex-
cepting a violent pain in the head, he felt no other injury,
Billot comprehended that he was, even at the worst, but
wounded. lie presses his hand to his forehead, to ascer-
tain the extent of damage he had received, and perceived
at one and the same time that he had only a contusion on
the head, and that his hand was streaming with blood.

The elegantly dressed young man who had supplanted
Billot had received a ball full in his breast. It was he who
had died. The blood on Billot's hand was his. The blow
which Billot had experienced Avas from the bust of Xecker,
which, losing its supporter, had fallen upon his head.

Billot uttered a cry, partly of anger, partly of terror.

He draws back from the young man, who was convulsed
in the agonies of death. "J'hose who surrounded him als*
drew back ; and the shout ho had uttered, repeated by the
crowd, is prolonged like a funeral echo by the groops as-
sembled in the Kue St. IIonor6.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 113

This shout was a second rebellion.

A second detonation was heard, and immediately deep
vacancies hollowed in the mass attested the passage of the
mnrderous projectiles.

To pick up the bust, the whole face of which was stained
with blood ; to raise it above his head, and protest against
this outrage in his sonorous voice, at the risk of being shot
down, as had been the handsome young man whose body
was then lying at his feet, was what Billot's indignation
prompted him to effect, and which he did in the first mo-
ment of his enthusiasm.

But at the same instant a large and powerful hand was
placed upon the farmer's shoulder, and with so much vigor
that he was compelled to bend down beneath its weiglit.
The farmer wishes to relieve himself from this pressure ;
another hand, no less heavy than the first, falls on his other
shoulder. He turned round, reddening with anger, to as-
certain what sort of antagonist he had to contend with.

** Pitou ! ^' he exclaimed.

''Yes, yes," replied Pitou. "Down! down! and you
will soon see."

And redoubling his efforts, he managed to drag with
him to the ground the opposing farmer.

No sooner had he forced Billot to lie down flat upon the
pavement than another discharge was heard. Tlie Savoy-
ard who was carrying the bust of the Duke of Orleans, fell
in his turn.

Then was heard the crushing of the pavement beneath
the horses' hoofs ; then the dragoons charged a second
time ; a horse, with streaming mane and furious as that
of the Apocalypse, bounds over the unfortunate Savoyard,
who feels the coldness of a lance penetrate his breast. He
falls on Billot and Pitou.

The tempest rushed onward toward the end of the street,
spreading, as it past, terror and death ! Dead bodies alojie
remained on the j)avement of the square. All those who
had formed the procession fled through the adjacent streets.
The windows are instantly closed — a gloomy silence suc-
ceeds to tlie shouts of enthusiasam and the cries of anger.

Billot Avaited a moment, still restrained by the prudent
Pitou : then, feeling that the danger Avas becoming more
distant with the noise, Avhile Pitou, like a hare in its form,
was beginning to raise, not his head, but his ears.

114 TAKING THE BASTILE.

** "Well, Monsienr Billot/' said Pitoii, " I think that yon
spoke trnly, and that we have arrived here in the nick of
time."

" Come, now, help me ! "

" And what to do — to run away ? '*

*' Xo, The young dandy is dead as a door-nail ; but the
poor Savoyard, in my opinion, has only fainted. Help me
to put him on my back. We cannot leave him here, to
be finished by those damned Germans."

Billot spoke a language which went straight to Pitou's
heart. lie had no answer to make but to obey. He took
i;p the fainting and bleeding body of the poor Savoyard,
and threw liini, as he would liave done a sack, across the
slioulders of the robust farmer ; who, seeing that the Rue
St. Honore was free, and in all appearance deserted, ad-
vanced witli Pitou toward the Palais lioyal.

CHAPTER XL

The street had, in the first place, appeared empty and
deserted to Billot and Pitou, because the dragoons, being
engaged in tlie pursuit of the great body of the fugitives,
had turned into the market of St. Honore, and had fol-
lowed them up the Rue Louis le Grand and the Rue
Gaillon. But as Billot advanced toward tlie Palais Royal,
roaring instinctively, but in a subdued voice, the word
" Vengeance," men made their appearance at the corners
of tlie streets, at the end of alleys, and from under the
carriage gateways, wdio, at first mute and terrified, looked
around them ; but, being at length assured of the absence
of the dragoons, brought uj) tlie rear of tliis funereal march,
repeating, first in hollow whispers, but soon aloud, and
finally with shouts, the word ** Vengeance ! vengeance !"

Pitou walked behind the farmer, carrying the Savoyard's
black cap in his hand.

They arrived thus, in gloomy and fearful procession,
upon the srpiare before the Palais Royal, where a whole
people, drunk with rage, was holding council, and soliciting
the support of Frcneii soldiers against the foreigners.

"Who are these men in uniform ? " inquired Billot, on
arriving in front of a company who were standing with

TAKING THE BASTILE. 115

grounded arms, stopjoing his passage across the square,
from the gate of the palace to the Eue de Chartres.

''They are the French Guards !" cried several voices.

"Ah!" exclaimed Billot, approaching them, and
showing them the body of the Savoyard, which was now a
lifeless corpse — "ah ! yon are Frenchmen, and yon allow
us to be murdered by these Germans ? "

The French Guards drew back with horror.

"Dead I" murmured a voice from within their ranks.

" Yes, dead ! dead ! assassinated ! he, and many more
besides."

"And by whom?"

" By the Royal German Dragoons. Did you not hear
the cries, the firing, the galloping of their horses ?"

"Yes, yes, Ave did !" cried two or three hundred voices ;
" they were butchering the people on the Place Vendome ! "

" And you are a part of the people. By heaven, you
are ! " cried Billot, addressing the soldiers. " It is, there-
fore, cowardly in you to allow your brothers to be
butchered."

" Cowardly I " exclaimed several threatening voices in
the ranks.

" Yes, cowardly. I have said it, and I repeat the word.
Come, now," continued Billot, advancing three steps
toward the spot from whence these murmurs had pro-
ceeded. " Well, now, will you not kill me, in order to
prove that you are not cowards ? "

" Good ! that is all well, very well," said one of the
soldiers. " You are a brave fellow, my friend, but you
are a citizen, and can do what you will ; but a military
man is a soldier, do you see, and he must obey orders."

"So that," replied Billot, "if you had received orders
to fire upon us — that is to say, upon unarmed men — you
would fire ; you who have succeeded the men of Fontenoy
— you who gave the advantage to the English by telling
them to fire first ! "

"As to me, I know that I would not fire, for one," said
a voice from the ranks.

" Nor I ! — nor I ! " repeated a hundred voices.

" The dragoons ! — the dragoons ! " cried several voices,
at the same time that the crowd driven backward, began
to throng the square, flying by the Rue do Richelieu.

And there was heard the distant sound of the galloping

116 TAKING THE BASTILE.

of lieavy cavalry upon the payemeiit, but which "became
louder at every moment.

" To arms ! — to arms I" cried tlie fugitives.

''A thousand gods!" cried Billot, throwing the dead
bod}' of the Savoyard upon the ground, which he had till
then held in his arms. " Give us your muskets, at least,
if you will not yourselves make use of them.*'

" Well, then, yes ; by a thousand thunders, we will make
nse of them ! " said the soldier to whom Billot had ad-
dressed himself, snatching out of his hand liis musket,
which the other had already seized. Come, come ; let ns
bite our cartridges, and if the Austrians have anything
to say to these brave fellows, we shall see."

"Yes, yes, we'll see \" cried the soldiers, putting their
hands into their cartouche boxes, and biting off the ends
of their cartridges.

'* Oh, thunder ! " cried Billot, stamping his feet ; " and
to think that I have ?iot brought my fowling-jiiece ! But
perhaps one of those rascally Austrians will be killed, and
then I will take his carbine."

" In the meantime,^' said a voice, " take this carbine;
it is ready loaded."

And at the same time an unknown man slipped a
richly mounted carbine into Billot's hands.

At that instant the dragoons galloped into the square,
riding down and sabering all that were in their way.

The ofiiccr who commanded the French Guards ad-
vanced four steps.

" Halloo ! there, gentlemen dragoons ! " cried he. " Halt
there, if you please ! "

Whether the dragoons did not hear, or whether they did
not chose to hear, or whether they could not at once arrest
the violent course of their horses, they rode across the
square, making a half-wheel to the right, and ran over a
woman and an old man, who disapjipared beneath their
horses' heels.

*' Fire, then— f^re ! " cried Billot.

Billot was standing close to the olhcer. It might have
been thought that it was the latter who had given the
word.

The French Guards presented their guns, and fired a
volley, which at once brought the dragoons to a stand.

*' Why, gentlemen of the guards," said a Oermau oflicer.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 117

advancing in front of his disordered squadron, " do you
know that you are firing upon us ? "

" Do we not know it ? " cried Billot ; and he fired at the
officer, who fell from his horse.

Then the French Guards fired a second volley ; and the
Germans, seeing that they had on this occasion to deal, not
with plain citizens, who would fly at the first saber cut,
but with soldiers, who firmly waited their attack, turned
to the right about, and galloped back to the Place Vendome,
amid so formidable an explosion of bravos and shouts of
triumph, that several of their horses, terrified at the noise,
ran off with their riders, and knocked their heads against
the closed shutters of the shops.

*' Long live the French Guards ! " cried the people.

" Long live the soldiers of the country ! " cried
Billot.

" Thanks," replied the latter. " We have smelled gun-
powder, and we are now baptized."

" And I, too," said Pitou. " I have smelled gun-
powder."

*' And what do you think of it ? " inquired Billot.

" Why, really, I do not find it so disagreeable as I had
expected," replied Pitou.

" But now," said Billot, who had had time to examine
the carbine, and had ascertained that it was a weapon of
some value, *'but now, to whom belongs this gun ? "

" To my master," said the voice which had already spoken
behind him. ''But my master thinks that you make too
good a use of it to take it back again."

Billot turned round, and perceived a huntsman in tJie
livery of the Duke of Orleans.

"And where is your master ?" said he.

The huntsman jiointed to a half-open Venetian blind,
behind which the prince had been Avatching all that had
passed.

" Your master is, then, on our side ?" asked Billot.

" With the people, heart and soul," replied the hunts-
man.

" In that case, once more, ' Long live the Duke of Or-
leans !' "cried Billot, " My friends, the Duke of Orleans
is with us. Long live the Duke of Orleans ! "

And he pointed to the blind behind which the prince
stood.

118 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Then tlie blind was thrown completely open, and the
Duke of Orleans bowed three times.

After which tiie blind was again closed.

Although of such short duration, his appearance had
wound up the enthusiasm of tlic people to its acme.

" Long live the Duke of Orleans I " vociferated two or
three thousand voices.

" Let us break open the armorers' shops ! " cried a voice
in the crowd.

" Let us run to the Invalides ! " cried some old soldiers.
" Sombreuil has twenty thousand muskets."

"To the Invalides ! "

" To the Town Hall ! '' exclaimed several voices. " Fles-
selles, the provost of the merchants, has the key of the
depot, in which the arms of the guards are kept. He will
give them to us."

"To the Hotel de Ville ! " cried a fraction of the crowd.

And the whole crowd dispersed, taking the three direc-
tions which had been pointed out.

During this time, the dragoons had rallied round the
Baron de Bezenval and the Prince de Lambesq, on the
Place Louis XV.

Of this Billot and Pitou were ignorant. They had not
followed either of the troops of the citizens, and they found
themselves almost alone in the square before the Palais
Eoyal.

" Well, dear Monsieur Billot, where are we to go next, if
you please ?" said Pitou.

" AVhy," replied Billot, " I should have desired to follow
those worthy people ; not to the guumal^ers' shop, since I
have such a beautiful carbine, but to the Hotel de Ville,
or the Invalides. However, not having come to Paris to
fight, but to find out the address of Doctor Gilbert, it ap-
pears to me that I ought to go to the College of Louis le
Grand, where his sou now is ; and then, after having seen
the doctor, w^hy, we can throw ourselves again into this
fighting business." And the eyes of the farmer flashed
lightnings.

" To go, in the first place, to the College Louis le Grand
appears to me quite logical," sententiously observed Pitou,
" since it was for that purpose that we came to Paris."

** Go, get a musket, a saber, a weapon of some kind or
other, from some one or other of those idle fellows who are

TAKING THE BASTILE. 119

lying on the pavement yonder," said Billot, pointing to one
out of five or six dragoons, who were stretched upon the
ground, "and let us at once go to the college."

" But these arms," saidPitou, hesitating, " they arenot
mine."

" Whom, then, do they belong to ? " asked Billot.

"To the king."

" They belong to the people," rejoined Billot.

And Piton, strong in the opinion of the farmer, who
knew that he was a man Avho would not rob a neighbor of
a grain of millet, Pitou, with every necessary precaution,
approached the dragoon wlio happened to be the nearest to
him, and after having assured himself that he was really
dead, took from him his saber, his musketoon, and his
cartouche-box.

Pitou had a great desire to take his helmet also, only he
was not quite certain that what Father Billot had said with
regard to offensive weapons extended to defensive accou-
terments.

But while thus arming himself, Pitou directed his ears
toward the Place Vendome.

" Ho ! ho ! " said he, " it appears to me that the Royal
Germans are coming this way again."

And, in fact, the noise of a troop of horsemen returning
at a foot-pace could be heard. Pitou peeped from behind
the corner of the coffee-house called La Regence, and per-
ceived, at about the distance of the market of St. Honore,
a patrol of dragoons advancing, with their musketoons in
hand.

" Oh, quick, quick ! " cried Pitou, " here they are, com-
ing back again."

Billot cast his eyes around him, to see if tliere M-as any
means of offering resistance. There was scarcely a person
in the square.

" Let us go, then," said he, " to the College Louis le
Grand."

And he went up the Rue de Chartres, followed by Pitou ;
who, not knowing the use of the hook upon his belt, was
dragging his long saber after him.

" A thousand thunders ! " exclaimed Billot ; " why, you
look like a dealer in old iron. Fasten me up that lath
there."

<* But how ? " asked Pitou.

120 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Why, so, by Heaven ! — there ! " said Billot.

And he hooked Pitou's long saber u]) to his belt, which
enabled the latter to walk with more celerity than he could
have done but for this expedient.

They pursued their way without meeting with any im-
pediment, till they reached the Place Louis XV.; but
there Billot and Piton fell in with the column which had
left them to proceed to the Invalides, and which had been
stopped short in its progress.

'* Well," cried Billot, " what is the matter ? "

" The matter is, that we cannot go across the Bridge
Louis XV."

" But you can go along the quays."

" All passage is stopped that way, too."

" And across the Champs Elysees ?"

''Also."

" Then let us retrace our steps, and go over the bridge
at the Tuileries."

Tlie proposal was a perfectly natural one ; and the crowd,
by following Billot, showed that they were eager to accede
to it. But they saw sabers gleaming half-way between
them and the Tuileries Gardens. The quay wa.s occupied
by a squadron of dragoons.

'' Why, these cursed dragoons are, then, everywhere ! "
murmured the farmer.

" I say, my dear Monsieur Billot," said Pitou,'' I be-
lieve that we are caught."

'' Pshaw ! they cannot catch five or six thousand men ;
and we arc five or six thousand men, at least.'"'

The dragoons on the quay were advancing slowly, it is
true, at a very gentle walk ; but they were visibly advanc-
ing.

'* The Eue Eoyale still remains open to us. Come this
way ; come. Pi ton."

Pitou followed the farmer, as if he had been his shadow.

But a line of soldiers was drawn across the street, near
the St. Ilonore Gate.

"Ah! ah!" muttered Billot; "you may be in the
right, friend Pitou."

"Hum!" wiug Pitou's sole reply.

But this word expressed, by the tone in which it had
been pronounced, all the regret which Pitou felt at not
having been mistaken.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 121

The crowd, by its agitation and its clamors, proved that
it was not less sensible than Pitou of the position in which
it was then placed.

And, in fact, by a skilful maneuver, the Prince de
Lambesq had surrounded, not only the rebels, but also
those who had been drawn there from mere curiosity,
and, by preventing all egress by the bridges, the quays, the
Champs Elys^es, and the Eue Royale and Les Gueillants,
he had inclosed them in a bow of iron, the string of which
was represented by the walls of the Tuileries Gardens,
which it would be very difficult to escalade, and the iron
gate of the Bout Tournant, which it was almost impossible
to force.

Billot reflected on their position ; it certainly was not a
favorable one ; however, as he was a man of calm, cool
mind, full of resources when in danger, he cast his eyes
around him, and perceiving a pile of timber lying beside
the river.

** I have an idea," said he to Pitou ; " come this way."

Pitou followed him, without asking him what the idea
was.

Billot advanced toward the timber, and seizing the end
of a large block, said to Pitou, '*Help me to carry this.'*

Pitou, for his part, without questioning him as to his
intentions, caught hold of the other end of the piece of
timber. He had such implicit confidence in the farmer
that he would have gone down to the infernal regions with
him, without even making any observation as to the length
of the descent.

They were soon upon the quay again, bearing a load
which five or six men of ordinary strength would have
found difficult to raise.

Strength is always a subject of admiration to the mob,
and although so compactly huddled together, they made
room for Billot and Pitou to pass through them.

Then, as they felt convinced that the maneuver which
was being accomplished was a maneuver of general interest,
some men walked before Billot, crying, " Make room !
make room I "

" Tell me now, Father Billot/' inquired Pitou, after
having carried the timber some thirty yards, '' arc we
going far in this way ! "

*' We are going as far as the gate of the Tuileries."

6 — Dumas — Yol. 1 X.

122 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" llo ! ho !" cried the crowd, who at once divined his
intention.

And it made way for them more eagerly even than before.

Piton looked about him, and saw that the gate was not
more than thirty paces distant from them.

'' I can reach it," said he, with the brevity of a Pythag-
orean.

The labor was so much the easier to Pitou, from five or
six of the strongest of the crowd taking their share in the
burden.

Tlie result of this was a very notable acceleration in
their progress.

In five minutes they had reached the iron gate.

'' Come, now," said Billot, "clap your shoulders to it
and all pusli together ! "

"Good!" said Pitou. "I understand it now. We
have just made a warlike engine ; the Romans use to call
it a ram."

"Now, my boys," cried Billot, ''once, twice, thrice !"
And the joist, directed with a furious impetus, struck the
lock of the gate with resounding violence.

Tlie soldiers who were on guard in the interior of the
garden hastened to resist tliis invasion. But at the third
stroke the gate gave way, turning violently on its liinges,
and through that gaping and gloomy mouth the crowd
ruslied impetuously.

From the movement that was then made the Prince de
Lambesq perceived at once that an opening had been ef-
fected whicli allowed tlie escape of tliose whom he had
considered as his prisoners. He was furious with disap-
pointment, lie urged his horse forward in order tlie
better to judge of the position of affairs. The dragoons
who were drawn up behind him imagined that the order
had been given to charge, and they followed liini. The
horses, going off at full speed, could not be suddenly pulled
up. The men, who wislicd to be revenged for the check
they had received on tlie square before tlie Palace Royal,
^scarcely endeavored to restrain them.

The prince saw that it would be impossible to moderate
their advance, and allowed himself to be borne away by it.
A sudden shriek, uttered by the women and ohildnMi,
ascended to heaven, crying for vengeance against the
brutal soldiers.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 123

A frightful scene then occurred, rendered still more
terrific by tlie darlcness. Those who were charged upon
became mad witli pain ; those who charged them were
mad with auger.

Then a species of defense was organized from the top of
a terrace. The chairs were hurled down on tlie dragoons.
The Prince of Lambesq, who had been struck on the head,
replied by giving a saber cut to the person nearest him,
without considering that he was 2')unishing an innocent
man instead of a guilty one, and an old man more than
seventy years of age fell beneath his sword.

Billot saw this man fall, and uttered a loud cry. In a
moment his carbine was at his shoulder. A furrov/ of
light for a moment illuminated the darkness, and the
prince had then died, had not his horse, by chance, reared
at the same instant.

The horse received the ball in his neck, and fell.

It was thought that the prince was killed ; the dragoons
then rushed into the Tuileries, pursuing the fugitives,
and firing their pistols at them.

But the fugitives, having now a greater space, dispersed
among the trees.

Billot reloaded his carbine.

'^In good faith, Pitou," said he, *' I think that you
were right. We really have arrived just in the nick of
time."

" If I should become a bold, daring fellow," said Pitou,
discharging his musketoon at the thickest group of dra-
goons. " It seems to me not so difficult as I had
thought."

''Yes," replied Billot ; " but useless courage is not real
courage. Come this way, Pitou, and take care that your
sword does not get between your legs."

*' Wait a moment for me, dear Monsieur Billot ; if I
should lose you, I should not know which way to go. I
do not know Paris as you do ; I was never liere before."

*' Come along, come along," said Billot ; and he went
by the terrace by the water-side until he had got ahead of
the line of troops which was advancing along the quay ;
but this time as rapidly as tliey could, to give their aid to
the Lambesq dragoons, should such aid be necessary.

When they reached the end of the terrace. Billot seated
himself on the parapet and jumped on to the quay.

Pitou followed his example.

124 TAKING THE BASTILE.

CHAPTER XTI.

Once upon the quay, the two countrj-men saw glitter-
ing on the bridge near the Tuileries the arms of another
body of men, which, in all probability, was not a body of
friends ; they silently glided to the end of the quay and
descended the bank which leads along the Seine.

The clock of the Tuileries was just then striking eleven.

When they had got beneath the trees which line the
banks of the river, fine aspen trees and poplars which
batlie their feet in its current ; when they were lost to the
sight of their pursuers, hid by their friendly foliage, the
farmer and Pi ton threw themselves upon the grass and
opened a council of war.

The question was to know, and this was suggested by
the farmer, whether they should remain where they were ;
that is to say, in safety, or comparatively so, or whether
they should again throw themselves into the tumult and
take their share of the struggle which was going on, and
which appeared likely to be continued the greater jsart of
the night.

The question being mooted, Billot awaited the reply of
Pitou.

Pitou had risen very greatly in the opinion of tho
farmer. In the first place, by the knowledge of which he
had given proofs the day before, and afterward by the
courage of which he had given such proofs during the
evening.

Pitou instinctively felt this, but instead of being prouder
from it, he was only the more grateful toward the good
farmer. Pitou was naturally very humble.

" Monsieur Billot," said he, " it is evident that you are
more brave, and I less a poltroon than I imagined.
Horace, who, however, was a very different num to us,
with regard to poetry, at least, threw away his arms and
ran off at the very first blow. As to me I have s( ill )iiy
musketoon, my cartridge-box, and my saber, which proves
that I am braver thiin llonioo."

*' Well, what are you driving at ?"

TAKING THE BASTILE. 125

** What I mean is this, dear Monsieur Billot : that the
bravest man in the world may be killed by a ball."

"And what then ? " inquired the farmer.

'< And then, my dear sir, thus it is : as yon stated, on
leaving your farm, that yon were coming to Paris for an
important object "

'* Oh, confound it ! that is true, for the casket."

" Well, then, did you come about this casket — yes or
no :

" I came about the casket, by a thousand thunders !
and for nothing else."

" If you should allow yourself to be killed by a ball, the
affair for which you came cannot be accomplished."

** In truth, you are ten times right, Pitou."

^^ Do you hear that crashing noise — those cries ?" con-
tinned Pitou, encouraged by the farmer's approbation ;
** wood is being torn like paper, iron is being twisted as if
it were but hemp."

" It is because the people are angry, Pitou."

**But, it appears to me," Pitou ventured to say, "that
the king is tolerably angry, too."

*'How say you, the king ?"

** Undoubtedly ; the Austrians, the Germans, the Kain-
serliks, as you call them, are the king's soldiers. Well, if
they charge the people — it is the king who orders them to
charge — and for him to give such an order, lie must be
angry too."

'' You are both right and wrong, Pitou."

" That does not appear possible to me. Monsieur Billot,
and I dare not say to you that had you studied logic, you
would not venture on such a paradox."

" You are right and you are wrong, Pitou, and I will
presently make you comprehend liow this can be."

"1 do not ask anything better, but I doubt it."

'' See you, now, Pitou, there are two parties at court :
that of the king, who loves the people, and that of the
queen, who loves the Austrians."

" That is becauso the king is a Frenchman, and the
queen an Austrian," philosophically replied Pitou.

" Wait a moment. On the king's side are Monsieur
Turgot and Monsieur Necker ; on the queen's Monsieur
de Breteuil and the Polignacs. The king is not tiie
master, since he has been obliged to send away Monsieur

126 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Turgot and Monsieur Necker. It is, therefore, the qneen
wlio is the mistress, the Breteuils and the Poliguacs ;
therefore, all goes badly.

'' Do you see, Pitou, the evil proceeds from Madame
Deficit, and Madame Deficit is in a rage, and it is in her
name that tiie troops charge ; the Austrians defend the
Austrian women — that is natural enough."

" Your pardon, Monsieur Billot," said Pitou, interrupt-
ing him, "but deficit is a Latin word which means to say
a want of something. "What is it that is wanting ?"

*• Zounds ! why, money, to be sure ; and it is because
money is wanting, it is because the queen's favorites have
devoured this money which is wanting, that the queen is
called Madame Deficit. It is not, therefore, the king who
is angry, but the queen. The king is only vexed — vexed
that everything goes so badly."

" I comprehend," said Pitou ; '' but the casket ?"

''That is true — that is true, Pitou ; these devilish
politics always drag me on further than I w^ould go — yes,
the casket before everything. You are right, Pitou ; when
I shall have seen Doctor Gilbert, why, then we can return
to politics — it is a sacred duty."

"There is nothing more sacred than sacred duties,"
said Pitou.

" Well, then, let us go to the College Louis le Grand,
where Sebastian Gilbert now is," said Billot.

" Let us go," said Pitou, sighing ; for he would be com-
pelled to leave a bed of moss-like grass, to which he had
accustomed himself. Besides which, notwithstanding the
over-excitement of the evening, sleep, the assiduous host
of pure consciences and tired limbs, had descended with all
its poppies to welcome the virtuous and heartily tired Pitou.

Billot was already on his feet, and Pitou was about to
rise when the half hour struck.

" But," said Billot, "at half-past eleven o'clock, the
College of Louis le Grand must, it would appear to me, be
closed."

"Oh, most assuredly !" said Pitou.

" And then, in the dark," continued Billot, " we might
fall into some ambuscade ; it seems to mo that I see the
firos of a bivouac in the direction of the Palace of Justice.
I may be arrested, or I may be killed ; you are right,
Pitou, I must not be arrested — I must not be killed."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 127

m'

It was the third time since that morning that Pitou's
ears had been saluted with those words so flattering human
pride :

" Yon are right."

Pitou thought he conki not do better than to repeat the
words of Billot.

" You are right/' he repeated, lying down again upon
the grass, " you must not allow yourself to be killed, dear
Monsieur Billot."

And the conclusion of this phrase died away in Pitou's
throat. Vox fmicihus hmsit, he might have added, had
he been awake ; but he was fast asleep.

Billot did not perceive it.

''An idea !" said he.

''Ah!" snored Pitou.

" Listen to me, I have an idea. Notwithstanding all
the precautions I am taking, I may be killed. I may
be cut down by a saber, or killed from a distance by a
ball — killed suddenly upon the spot ; if tliat should
happen, you ought to know what you will have to say
to Doctor Gilbert in my stead ; but you must be mute,
Pitou."

Pitou heard not a word of this, and consequently made
no reply.

" Should I be wounded mortally, and not be able to ful-
fil my mission, you will, in my place, seek out Doctor
Gilbert, and you will say to him — do you understand me,
Pitou ? " added the farmer, stooping toward his companion,
" and you will say to him — why, confound him, he is posi-
tively snoring, the sad fellow ! "

All the excitement of Billot was at once damped on
ascertaining that Pitou was asleep.

"Well, let us sleep, then," said he ; and he laid him-
self down by Pitou's side, without grumbling very seri-
ously. For, however accustomed to fatigue, the ride of
the previous day, and the events of the evening, did not
fail to have a soporific effect on the good farmer.

And tlie day broke about three hours after they had
gone to sleep, or, rather, we should say, after their senses
were benuinl)ed.

When they again opened their eyes, Paris had lost
nothing of that savage countenance which they had ob-
served the night before.

128 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Only there were no soldiers to be seen, the jjeople were
everywhere.

The people arming tliemselves witli pikes, hiistily manu-
factured, with muskets, which the majority of them
knew not how to handle, with magnificent weapons made
centuries before, and of which the bearers admired the
oruments, some being inlaid with gold or ivory, or mother-
of-pearl, without comprehending the use or the mechanism
of them.

Immediately after the retreat of the soldiers, the popu-
lace had pillaged the palace called the Garde Meuble.

And the people dragged toward the H6tel de Ville two
small pieces of artillery.

'J'lie alarm-bell was rung from the towers of Notre Dame,
at the Hotel de Ville, and in all the parish churches.
There were seen issuing — and from where no one could
tell — but as from beneatli the pavement, legions of men
and women, squalid, emaciated, in filthy rags, half naked,
who, but the evening before, cried, " Give us bread \" but
now vociferated, " Give us arms ! "

Nothing could be more terrifying than these bands of
specters, who, during the last three months, had poured
into the capital from the country, passing through the city
gates silently, and installing themselves in Paris, where
famine reigned, like Arabian ghonls in a cemetery.

On that day, the whole of France, represented in Paris
l)y tlie starving people from ea(di province, cried to its
king, " Give us liberty !" and to its God. ''' Give us food !"

liillot, who was first to wake, roused up Pitou, and they
both set off to the College Louis le Grand, looking around
them, shuddering and terrified at tlie miserable creatures
tliey saw on every side.

By degrees, as they advanced toward that part of the
town wiiich we now call the Latin Quarter, as they as-
cended tlie Tiue de la llarpe, as they approached the Hue
St. Jacques, they saw, Jis during the times of La Fronde,
barricades being raised in everv street. AVomen and
children were carrying to the tops of the houses ponderous
folio volumes, heavy pieces of furniture, and precious
marl)le ornaments, destined to crush the foreign soldiers,
in case of their venturing into the narrow and tortuous
streets of old Paris.

From time to time, Billot observed one or two of the

TAKING THE BASTILE. 129

French Guards, forming the center of some meeting which
they were organizing, and which, with marvelous rapidity,
they were teacliing the handling of a musket, exercises
which women and children were curiously observing, and
almost with a desire of learning tliem themselves.

Billot and Pitou found the college of Louis le Grand in
flagrant insurrection ; the pupils had risen against their
teachers, and had driven them from the building. At the
moment when the farmer and his companion reached the
grated gate, the scholars Avere attacking this gate, utter-
ing loud threats, to which the affrighted principal replied
with tears.

The farmer, for a moment, gazed on this intestine re-
volt, when suddenly, in a stentorian voice, he cried out :

" Which of you here is called Sebastian Gilbert ? "

''*Tis I," replied a young lad, about fifteen years of
age, of almost feminine beauty, and who, with the assist-
ance of four or five of his comrades, Avas carrying a ladder
wherewith to escalade the Avails, seeing that they could
not force open the gate.

" Come nearer to me, my child."

" What is it that you want with me ? " said young Se-
bastian to Billot.

" Do you wish to take him aAvay ? " cried the principal,
terrified at the aspect of two armed men, one of whom,
the one who had spoken to young Gilbert, Avas covered
with blood.

The boy, on his side, looked Avith astonishment at these
two men, and Avas endeavoring, but uselessly, to recognize
his foster-brother, Pitou, avIio had grown so immeasurably
tall since he last saw him, and who Avas altogether meta-
morphosed by the Avarlike accouterments he had put on.

" Take him aAvay ! '"' exclaimed Billot, '* take away
Monsieur Gilbert's son, and lead him into all this turmoil
— expose him to receiving some unhappy blow ? Oh, no,
indeed ! "

" Do you see, Sebastian," said the principal, " do you
Bee, you furious fellow, that even your friends will have
nothing to do Avith you ? For, in short, these gentlemen
appear to be your friends. Come, gentlemen, come, my
young pupils, come, my children," cried the poor principal,
*' obey me — obey me, I command you — obey me, 1 entreat
you ! "

130 TAKING THE BASTILE.

** Oro obtestorque," said Piton.

*' Sir," said young Gilbert, with a firmness that was ex«
traordiuary iu a youth of his age, ** return my comrades,
if such be your pleasure, but as to me, do you understand
me, I will go out."

He made a movement toward the gate ; the professor
cauglit him by the arm.

But he, shaking his fine auburn curls upon his pallid
forehead :

"Sir," said he, " beware of what you are doing. lam
not in the same position as your other pupils — my father
has been arrested, imprisoned — my father is in the power
of the tyrants."

*' In the power of the tyrants ! " exclaimed the Billot.
•* Speak, my child ; what is it that you mean ? "

** Yes, yes," cried several of the scholars, " Sebastian is
right ; his father has been arrested ; and, since the people
have opened the prisons, he wishes they should open his
fatiier's prison, too."

*' Oh ! oh !"said the farmer, shaking the bars of the
gate with his herculean arms, *' they have arrested Doctor
Gilbert, have they ? By Heaven ! my little Catherine,
then, was right."

"Yes, sir," continued young Gilbert; "they have ar-
rested my father, and that is why I wish to get out, why
I wish to take a musket, why I wish to fight, until I have
liberated my dear father."

And these words wore accompanied and encouraged by
a hundred furious voices, crying, in every key :

" Arms ! arms ! Let us have arms ! "

On hearing these cries, the crowd, which had collected
in the street, animated in its turn by a heroic ardor, rushed
toward the gate to give liberty to the collegians.

The principal threw himself upon his knees between his
scholars and the invaders, and held out his arms with a
supplicating gesture.

"Oh, my friends, my friends," cried he, "resi">ect my
children."

" Do wo not respect them ? " said a Fi-ench Guard ;
" I believe we do, indeed. They are fine boys, and they
will do their exorcise admirably."

" My friends, my friends, these children are a sacred
deposit which their parents have confided to me ; I am

TAKING THE BASTILE . 131

responsible for them; their parents calculate upon me;
for them I would sacrifice raj life ; but, in the name of
Heaven, do not take away these children !"

Hooting, proceeding from the street — that is to say,
from the hindmost ranks of the crowd, replied to these
piteous supplications. Billot rushed forward, opposing
the French Guards, the crowd, the scholars themselves.

"He is right, it is a sacred trust. Let them fight, let
men get themselves killed, but let children live — they
are seed for the future."

A disapproving murmur followed these words.

"Who is it that murmurs ?" cried Billot ; "assuredly,
it cannot be a father. I, who am now speaking to you,
had two men killed in my arms ; their blood is upon my
shirt. See this !" And he showed his shirt and waist-
coat, all begrimed with blood, and with a dignified move-
ment which electrified the crowd.

"Yesterday," continued Billot, "I fought at the Palais
Royal, and at the Tuileries ; and this lad also fought
there, but this lad has neither father nor mother ; more-
over, he is almost a man." And he pointed to Pitou,
who looked proudly around him. "To-day, I shall fight
again ; but let no one say to me — the Parisians were not
strong enough to contend against the foreign soldiers,
and they called children to their aid."

"Yes, yes," resounded on every side, proceeding from
women in the crowd, and several of the soldiers ; "lie is
right, children; go into the college; go into the college."

"Oh, thanks, thanks, sir !" murmured the 7irincipal of
the college, endeavoring to catch hold of Billot's hand
through the bars of the gate.

"And, above all, take especial care of Sebastian; keep
him safe," said the latter.

"Keep me ! I say, on the contrary, that I will not bo
kept here !" cried the boy, livid with anger, and strug-
gling with the servants, who were dragging him away.

"Let me in," said Billot. "I will engage to quiet
him."

The crowd made way for him to pass ; the farmer

132 TAKING THE BASTILE

dragged Pitoii after him, and entered the courtyard of
the college. Already three or four of the French Guards
and about ten men placed themselves as sentinels at the
gate, and prevented the egress of the young insurgents.
Billot went straight up to young Sebastian, and taking
between his huge and horny palms the small hands of the
child : "Sebastian," he said, "do you not recognize me ?"

"Xo."

"I am old Billot, your father's farmer."

"I know you now, sir."

"And this lad," rejoined Billot, pointing to his com-
panion, "do you know him ?"

"Ange Pitou," said the boy.

"Yes — Sebastian, it is me — it is me."

And Pitou, weeping with joy, threw his arms round
the neck of his foster-brother and former schoolfellow.

"Well," said the boy, whose brow still remained scowl-
ing, "what is now to be done ?"

''What ?" cried Billot. "Why, if they have taken your
father from you, I will restore him to you. Do you
understand ?"

"You ?"

"Yes, I — T, and all those who are out yonder with me.
What the devil ! Yesterday we had to deal ^Vith the Aus-
trians, and we saw their cartridge-boxes."

"Tn proof of which, I have one of them," said Pitou.

"Shall we not release his father?" cried Billot, ad-
dressing the crowd.

"Yes !" roared the crowd. "We will release him !"

Sebastian shook his head. "My father is in the Bas-
tile," said he, in a despairing tone.

"And what then ?" cried Billot.

"The Bastile cannot be taken," rei^lied the chihl.

"Then, what was it you wished to do, if such is your
conviction ?"

"T wisbod to CO to the open space bofore the castle.
There will l»e fiditinc there, and my father might have
seen me thronph the bars of the window."

"Impossible!"

TAKING THE BASTILE. I33

" Impossible ? And why shonld I not do so ? One day,
when I was walking out with all the boys here., I saw the
head of a prisoner. If I could have seen my father as I
saw that prisoner, I should have recognized him, and said :
* Do not be unhappy, father, I love you ! ' "

'* And if the soldiers of the Bastile should have killed
you ? "

" Well, then, they would have killed me under the eyes
of my father."

'* The death of all the devils '.''exclaimed Billot. _ ''You
are a wicked lad, to think of getting yourself killed in
your father's sight, and make him die of grief in a cage —
he who has only you in the world, he who loves you so
tenderly! Decidedly, you have a bad heart, Gilbert."

And the farmer pushed the boy from him.

" Yes, yes ; a wicked heart," howled Pitou, bursting
into tears.

Sebastian did not reply.

And v/liile he was meditating in gloomy silence. Billot
was admiring his beautifully pale face, his flashing eyes,
his ironical expressive mouth, his well-shaped nose, and
his strongly developed chin — all of which gave testimony
at once of his nobility of soul and nobility of race.

*' You say that your father is in the Bastile/' said the
farmer, at length breaking the silence.

" Yes."

'* And for what ? "

" Because my father is the friend of Lafayette and
Washington ; because my father has fought with his sword
for the independence of America, and with his pen for the
liberty of France ; because my father is well known in
both worlds as the detestor of tyranny ; because he has
called down curses on the Bastile, in which so many have
suffered ; and, therefore, have they sent him there ! "

''And when was this ? "

" Six days ago."

" And where did they arrest him ? "

** At Havre, where he had just landed."

" How do you know all this ? "

" 1 have received a letter from him."

" Dated from Havre ? "

" Yes."

*' And it was at Havre itself that he was arrested ?"

134 . TAKING THE BASTILE.

** It was at Lilleboime.**

** Come, now, child, do not feel angry with me, but
give me all the particnlars that you know. 1 swear to yoa
that I will either leave my bones on the Place de la Bastile,
or you shall see your father again/'

Sebastian looked at the farmer, and seeing that he spoke
from his heart, his angry feelings subsided.

'* Well, then,*' said he, *' at Lillebonne he had time to
write in a book, with a j^encil, these words :

'* ' Sebastian, I have been arrested, and tliey are taking
me to the Bastile. Be patient, and study diligently.
Lillebonne, 7th July, 1789.

" ' P. S. — I am arrested in the cause of Liberty. I
have a son in the College Louis le Grand, at Paris. The
person who shall find this book is entreated, in the name
of humanity, to get it conveyed to my son. Ilis name is
Sebastian Gilbert.'*'

"And this book?" inquired Billot, palpitating with
emotion.

" He put a piece of gold into this book, tied a cord
round it, and threw it out of the window."

'^And ?"

" The curate of the place found it, and chose from
among his parishioners a robust young man, to whom he
said :

" * Leave twelve francs with your family, who are with-
out bread, and with the otlier twelve go to Paris, carry
this book to a poor boy whose father has just been arrested
because he has too great a love for the people."

*'The young man arrived here yesterday afternoon, and
delivered to me my father's book. And this is the way I
learned how my father had been arrested."

" Come, come," cried Billot, " this reconciles me some-
what with the priests. L^nfortunately, they are not all
like this one. And this wortliy young man, what has
become of him ? "

*' lie set ofE to return home last night, lie hoped to
carry back with him to his family five francs out of the
twelve he had brought with him."

"Admirable ! admirable !" exclaimed Pitou, weeping
for joy.

" Oh ! the people have good feelings I Go on, Gilbert."

TAKING THE BASTILE. I35

""Why, now, you know all."

" Yes."

'' You promised me, if I would tell you all, that yon
would bring back my father to me. I liave told you all ;
now, remember your promise."

" I told you that I would save him, or I would be killed
in the attempt. That is true."

"And now, show me the book," said Billot.

" Here it is," said the boy, taking from his pooket a
volume of the " Contrat Sociale."

*' And where is your father's handwriting ?"

'^ Here," replied the boy, pointing to what the doctor
had written.

The farmer kissed the written characters.

*' And now," said he, ** tranquilize yourself. I am go-
ing to seek your father in the Bastile."

** Unhappy man !" cried the principal of the college,
seizing Billot's hands. '' How can you obtain access to
a prisoner of state ? "

*' Zounds ! by taking the Bastile."

Some of the French Guards began to laugh. In a few
moments the laugh had become general.

" Why," said Billot, casting around him a glance flash-
ing with anger, "what, tlien, is tlie Bastile, if you
please ? "

" Stone," said a soldier.

*' Iron," said another.

" And fire," said a third. " Take care, my worthy man,
you may burn your fingers."

" Yes, yes ; you may burn yourself," reiterated the
crowd, with horror.

** Ah, Parisians," exclaimed the farmer, " you have pick-
axes, and you are afraid of stone ! Ah ! you have lead,
and you fear iron. You have gunpowder, and you arc
afraid of fire. Parisians ! — cowards ! — Parisians ! — pol-
troons ! Parisians — machines for slavery ! A thousand
demons ! where is the man of heart who will go with me
and Pitou to take the king's Bastile ? My name is Billot,
a farmer of the He de France. Forward ! "

Billot had raised himself to the very climax of audacity.

The crowd, rendered enthusiastic by his address, and,
trembling with excitement, pressed around him, crying,
"To the Bastile I"

136 TAKING THE BASTILB.

Sebastian endeavored to cling to Billot, and the latter
gently pushed him back.

" Child," said he, " what is the last word your father
wrote to you ? "

*'' Work," replied Sebastian.

" Well, then, work here. We are going to luorh down
yonder ; only our work is called destroying and killing."

Tlie young man did not utter a word in reply. He hid
his face with both hands, without even pressing the hand
of Pitou, who embraced him ; and he fell into snch violent
convulsions that he was immediately carried into the
infirmarv attached to the college.

" To the Bastile ! " cried Billot.

'^To the Bastile !" cried Pitou.

" To tlie Bastile ! " shouted the crowd.

And they immediately commenced their march toward
the Bastile.

CHAPTER XIII.

And now we req-uest our readers to allow us to give
them an insight into the principal political events that had
occurred since the period at which we abandoned tlie
court of France.

Those who know the history of that period, or those
whom dry, plain history may alarm, can skip over tliis
chapter, and pass on to the next one, which completely
dovetails in with Chapter XII. — the one we are now writ-
ing being intended for those very precise and exacting
spirits who are determined to be informed on every point.

During the last year or two, something unheard of, un-
known, something emanating from the past, and looking
toward the future, was threatening and growling in the air.

It was the Revolution.

Voltaire had raised himself for a moment, while in his
last agony, and, leaning upon his elbow in his death-bed,
he had seen shining, even amid the darkness in which he
was about to sleep forever, the brilliant lightnings of the
dawn.

When Anno of Austria assumed the regency of France,
Bays Cardinal do Rctz, tlicre was but one saying iu every
mouth, ** The queen is so good 1"

One day Mme. de Pompadour's physician, Quesnoy, who

TAKING THE BASTILE. 137

had an apartment in her house, saw Louis XV. coming
in. A feeling altogether unconnected with respect agi-
tated him so much that he trembled and turned pale.

*' What is the matter with you ?" said Mme. de Hausset
to him.

" The matter is/'' replied Quesnoy, " that every time I
see the king I say to myself, ' There is a man who, if he
should feel so inclined, can have my head cut o^.'"

" Oh, there's no danger of that I " rejoined Mme. de
Hausset. *' The king is so good ! "

It is with these two phrases : ** The king is so good ! "
" The queen is so good ! " that the French Revolution
was effected.

When Louis XV. died, France breathed again. The
country was delivered at the same moment from the king,
the Pompadours, the Dubarrys, and the Pare mix Cerfs.

The pleasures of Louis XV. had cost the nation very
dear. On them alone were expended three millions of
livres a year.

Fortunately, after him came a king who was young,
moral, philanthropic, almost philosophical.

A king who, like the Emile of Jean Jacques Rousseau,
had studied a trade, or, rather, we should say three trades.

He was a locksmith, a watchmaker, and a mechanician.

Being alarmed at the abyss over which he was suspended,
the king began by refusing all favors that were asked of
him. The courtiers trembled. Fortunately, there was
one circumstance which reassured them — it was not the
king who refused, but Turgot — it was, that the queen was
not yet in reality a queen ; and, consequently, could not
have that influence to-day which she might acquire to-
morrow.

At last, toward the year 17T7, she acquired that influence
which had so long been desired. The queen became a
mother. The king, who was already so good a king, so good
a husband, could now also prove himself a good fatiier.

How could anything be now refused to her who had
given an heir to the crown ?

And besides, that was not all ; the king was also a good
brother. The anecdote is well known of Beaumarchais
being sacrificed to the Count do Provence, and yet the
king did not like the Count do Provence, who was a
pedant.

138 TAKING THE BASTILE.

But, to make up for this, he was very fond of his younger
brotlier, the Count d'Artois, the type of French wit, ele-
gance, and nobleness.

lie loved him so much that if ho sometimes refused the
queen any favor she might have asked of him, the Count
d'Artois had only to add his solicitations to those of the
queen, and the king had no longer the firmness to refuse.

It was, in fact, the reign of amiable men. M. de Ca-
lonne, one of the most amiable men in the world, was
controller-general. It was Calonne who said to the queen :

" Madame, if it is possible, it is done ; and if it is im-
possible, it shall be done."

From the very day on wliich this charming reply was
circulated in all the drawing-rooms of Paris and Veisailles,
the red book, which every one had thought closed forever,
was reopened.

The queen buys St. Cloud.

The king buvs Rambouillet.

It is no longer the king who has lady favorites, it is the
queen. Mmes. Diana and Jules de Polignac cost as much
to France as La Pompadour and La Dubarry.

The queen is so good !

A reduction is proposed in the salaries of the high
officers of the court. Some of them make up their minds
to it. But one of the most habitual frcquentei*s of the
palace obstinately refuses to submit to this reduction ; it
IS M. de Coigny. He meets the king in one of the corri-
dors ; a terrible scene occurs, the king runs away, and in
the evening says, laughingly :

" Upon my word, I believe if I had not yielded, Coigny
would have beaten me."

The king is so good !

And then the fate of a kingdom sometimes depends upon
a very trivial circumstance ; the spur of a page, for in-
stance.

Louis XV. dies. "Who is to succeed M. d'Aiguillon ?

The king, Louis X\'I., is for Marchant. Marchant is
one of the ministers who had sustained the already totter-
ing throne. Mesdames — that is to say, the king's aunts —
are for M. de Maurepius, who is so amusing, and who
writes such pretty songs. He wrote three volumes of them
at Pontohartrain, wiiich he calls his memoirs.

All this is a stee])le-chase aifair. The question was as

TAKING THE BASTILE. 139

to who should arrive first. The king and qneeu at Arnou-
ville or Mmes. de Pontchartrain.

The king has the power in his own hands ; the chances
are, therefore, in his favor.

He hastens to write :

" Set out the very moment you receive this for Paris.
I am waiting for you."

He slips his despatch into an envelope, and on the en-
velope he writes •

''Monsieur le Comte de Marchant, at Arnouville."

A page of the king's stables is sent for ; the royal missive
is put into his hands, and he is ordered to mount a horse
and to go to Arnouville full speed.

And now that the page is despatched, the king can re-
ceive mesdames.

Mesdames — the same whom the king, their father, as
has been seen in " Balsamo," called Locque, Chiffe, and
Graille, three names eminently aristocratic — mesdames are
waiting at a door opposite to that by which the page goes
out, until he sliall have left the room.

The page once gone out, mesdames may go in.

They go in, entreat the king in favor of M. Maurepas —
all this is a mere question of time — the king does not like
to refuse mesdames anything — the king is so good !

He will accede to their request when the page shall have
got so far on his Journey that no one can come up with
him.

He contested the point with mesdames, his eyes fixed on
the time-piece. Half an hour will be sufficient for him.
The time-piece will not deceive him. It is the time-iiicce
which he himself regulates.

Twenty minutes have elapsed, and he yields.

'' Let tlie page be overtaken," said he, "and all shall be
as you please."

Mesdames rush out of the room ; they will dispatch a
man on horseback ; he shall kill a horse, two horses, six
horses, but the page must be overtaken.

All these determinations are unnecessary ; not a single
horse will be killed.

140 TAKING THE BASTILE.

In goin^ down the staircase one of the page's spurs
struck against one of the stone steps and broke short off.
How could any one go at full speed with only one spur ?

Besides, the Chevalier d'Abrac is the chief of the great
stable, and he >vould not allow a courier to mount his
horse — he whose duty it was to inspect the couriers — if
the courier was about to set out in a manner that would
not do honor to the royal stables.

The page, therefore, could not set out without liaviug
both his spurs.

The result of all this was, that instead of overtaking the
page on the road to Arnouville — galloping at full speed —
he was overtaken before he had left the courtyard of the
palace.

He was already in the saddle and was about to depart in
the most irreproachable good order.

The despatch is taken from him, the text of the missive
is left unchanged, for it was as good for the one as the
other. Only, instead of Avriting the address, " To j\Ion-
sieur de JMarchant, at Arnouville," mesdames wrote, " To
Monsieur Ic Comte de Maurcpas, at Pontchartrain."

The honor of the royal stable is saved, but the monarchy
is lost.

With Maurcpas and Calonne, everything goes on niar-
velously well ; the one sings, the other plays ; but besides
the courtiers, there are the receivers-general, who also
have their functions to perform.

Louis XIV. began his reign by ordering two receivers-
general to be hanged, and with the advice of Colbert ;
after which he took Lavalliere for his mistress and built
Versailles. Lavalliere cost him nothing.

But Versailles, in which he wished to lodge her, cost
him a round sum.

Then, in 1G85, under the pretext that they were Pro-
testants, he drove a million of iudustrious men from
France.

And thus, in 1707, still under iha great king, Boisguil-
bert said, speaking of 1698 :

" Things still went on well in those days : there was yet
some oil in the lamp. But now all has come to an end
for want of aliment."

What could be said eighty years afterward, when the
Dubarrys, the Polignacs, had taken their fill ? After

TAKING THE BASTILE. 141

having made tlie people sweat water, they would make
them sweat blood. That was all.

And all this in so delightful and polite a manner.

In former days the contractors of the public revenue
were harsh, brutal, and cold, as the prison gates into
which they cast their victims.

But in these days they are philanthropists ; with one
hand they despoil the people, that is true ; but with the
other they build hospitals for them.

One of my friends, a great financier, has assured me
that out of one hundred and twenty millions, which the
town dues bring in, the contractors managed to keep
seventy millions for themselves.

It happened that at a meeting where the state of ex-
penses was demanded, a counselor playing upon the word,
said :

"It is not any particular state that we require ; what
we want are the states-general."

The sparks fell upon gunpowder, the powder ignited
and caused a general conflagration.

Every one repeated the saying of the counselor, and the
states-general were loudly called for.

The court fixed the opening of the states-general for the
1st of March, 1798.

On the 24th of August, 1788, M. de Brienne withdrew
from public affairs. He was another who had managed
the financial affairs with tolerable recklessness.

But on withdrawing he, at least, gave good counsel ; he
advised that Necker should be recalled.

Necker resumed the administration of affairs, and all
again breatlied confidence.

Notwithstanding this, the great question of the three
orders were discussed throughout France.

Sieves published his famous pamphlets upon the Tiers
Etat.*

Dauphiny, the states of which province still met in spite
of all the court could do, decided that the representations
of tlie Tiers-Etat should be on an equality with that of the
nobility and the clergy.

The assembly of the notables was reconstructed.

This assembly lasted thirty-six days ; that is to say, from
the Gth of November to the 8th of December, 1788t
* The Third Order, or Third Estate.

142 TAKING THE BASTILE,

On this occasion tlie elements performed tlieir part.
When the whip of kings does not suffice, the whip of the
Creator whistles in the air and compels the people to move
onward.

Winter came, accompanied by famine. Hunger and
cold opened the gates of 1789.

Paris was filled with troops ; its streets with patrols.

Two or three times the muskets of the soldiers were
loaded in the presence of the people who were dying with
hunger.

And then, the muskets being loaded, and the moment
having arrived for using them, they did not use them
at all.

One morning, the 28th of April, five days before the
opening of the states-general, a)iame was circulated among
the crowd.

This name was accompanied by maledictions, and the
most vituperative because this name Avas that of a work-
man who had become rich.

Reveillon, as was then asserted, Eeveillou, the director
of the celebrated paper manufactory of the Faubourg St.
Antoine, Reveillon had said that tlie wages of workmen
ought to be reduced to fifteen sous a day.

And this was true.

It was also said that the court was about to decorate
him with the Black Ribbon — that is to say, with the Order
of St. Michael.

But this was an absurdity.

Tiiere is always some absurd rumor in popular com-
motions. And it is remarkable that it is also by this
rumor that they increase their numbers, that they recruit,
and at last become a revolution.

The crowd makes an effigy, baptizes it with the name of
Reveillon, decorates it with the Black Ribbon, sets fire to
it before Reveillon's own door, and then proceeds to the
square before the II6tel de Ville, where it completes tlie
burning of the effigy before the eyes of the municipal
authorities, who see it burning.

Impunity emboldens the crowd, who give notice that
after having done justice on the effigy they will the follow-
ing day do justice on the real person of the offender.

Tliis was a challenge in due form addressed to the
public autliorities.

TAKING THE BASTILE. I4.3

The anthorities sent thirty of the French Guards ; and
even then it was not the authorities who sent them, but
their colonel, M. de Biron.

These thirty French Guards were merely witnesses of
this great duel which they could not prevent. They
looked on while the mob was pillaging the manufactory,
throwing the furniture out of the windows, breaking
everythiug, burning everything. Amid this hubbub, five
hundred louis in gold was stolen.

They drank the wine in the cellars, and when there was
no more wine, they drank the colors of the manufactory,
which they took for wine.

The whole of the day of the 37th was employed in effect-
ing this villainous spoliation.

A reinforcement was sent to the thirty men ; it con-
sisted of several companies of the French Guards, who, in
the first place, fired blank cartridges, then balls. Toward
evening there came to the support of the guards part of
the Swiss regiment of M. de Bezenval.

The Swiss never make a jest of matters connected with
revolution.

The Swiss forgot to take the balls out of their cartridges,
and as the Swiss are naturally sportsmen and good marks-
men, too, about twenty of the pillagers remained wpon the
pav^ement.

Some of them had about them a portion of the five
hundred louis which we have mentioned, and which, from
the secretary of Reveillon, had passed into the pockets of
the pillagers, and from the pockets of the pillagers into
those of the Swiss Guards.

Bezenval had done all this ; he had done it out of his
own head, as the vulgar saying has it.

The king did not thank him for what he had done, nor
did ho blame him for it.

Now, when the king does not thank, the king blames.

The parliament opened an inquiry.

The king closed it.

The king was so good !

Who it was that had stirred on the people to do this, no
one could tell.

lias it not been often seen, during the great heats of
summer, that conflagrations have taken place without any
apparent cause ?

144 TAKING THE BASTILE.

The Duke of Orleans was accused of having excited this
disturbance.

The accusation was absurd, and it fell to the ground.

On the 29th Paris was perfectly tranquil, or, at least,
appeared to be so.

The 4th of May arrived. The king and the queen went
in procession with the whole court to the Cathedral of
Notre Dame to hear the " Veni Creator."

There were great shouts of " Long live the king ! " and,
above all, of " Long live the queen ! "

The queen was so good !

This was the last day of peace.

The next day the shouts of " Long live the queen !"
were not so frequent, but the mob cried more frequently,
*'' Long live the Duke of Orleans ! "

Tiiese cries wounded her feelings much, poor woman !
She who detested the duke to such a degree that she said
he was a coward.

As if there had ever been a coward in the Orleans
family ! from Monsieur, who gained the battle of Cassel,
down to the Duke of Chartres who contributed to the gain-
ing of those at Jemappes and Valmy.

It went so far that the poor woman was near fainting ;
she was supported, her head leaning on her shoulder.

Mme. Campan relates this incident in her memoirs.

But this reclining head raised itself up, haughty and
disdainful. Those who saw the expression of those features
were at once cured, and forever, of using the expression :

The queen is so good !

There exists three portraits of the queen : one painted
in 1776, another in 1784, and a third in 1788.

I have seen all three of them. See them in your turn.
If ever these three portraits are placed in the same gallery,
the history of Marie Antoinette can be read in those three
portraits.*

The meeting of the three orders, which was to have pro-
duced a general pacification, proved a declaration of war.

" Three orders," said Sieyes ; '• no, three nations."

On the 3d of May, the eve of the mass of the Holy
Ghost, the king received the deputies at Versailles.

Some persons counseled him to substitute cordiality for
etiquette.

* The three portraits are at Versailles.

TAKING THE BASTILE. I45

The king would not listen to anything.

He, in the first place, received the clergy.

After them the nobility.

At last the Tiers Etat.

The Third had been waiting a long time.

The Third mnrmnred.

In the assemblies of former times, the Tiers Etat pro-
aounced their discourses on their knees.

There was no possibility of. inducing the president of
the Tiers Etat to go down on his knees.

It was decided that the Tiers Etat should not pronounce
an oration.

In the sittings of the 5th the king put on his hat.

The nobility put on their hats.

The Tiers Etat were about to put on their hats also, but
the king then took off his. He preferred holding it in his
hand to seeing the Tiers Etat covered in his presence.

On Wednesday, the 10th of June, Sieyes entered the
assembly ; he found it almost entirely composed of the
Tiers Etat.

The clergy and the nobility were assembled elsewhere.

" Let us cut the cable," said Sieyes, " it is now time.'*

And Sieyes proposed that the clergy and the nobility
should be summoned to attend within an hour from that
time at the latest.

In case of non-appearance, default should be pronounced
against the absent

A German and Swiss army surrounded Versailles. A
battery of artillery was pointed against the assembly.

Sieyes saw nothing of all this ; he saw the people who
were starving ; but the Third, Sieyes was told, could not,
of itself, form the states-general.

" So much the better," replied Sieyes ; '' it will form
the National Assembly."

The absent did not present themselves ; the proposal of
Sieyes was adopted ; the Tiers Etat called itself the Na-
tional Assembly by a majority of four hundred votes.

On the 19th of June, the king orders the building in
which the National Assembly held their meetings to be
closed.

But the king, in order to accomplish such a coup d'etat^
needed some pretext.

The hall is closed for the purpose of making prepara-

7— Dumas— Voii. IX.

146 TAKING THE BASTILE.

tions for a royal sitting, which was to take place on the
following Monday.

On the ::20th of Jnne, at seven in the morning, the Pres-
ident of the National Assembly is informed that there will
be no meeting on that day.

At eight o'clock he presents himself at the door of the
hall, with a great number of the deputies.

Tiie doors are closed, and sentinels are guarding the
doors.

The rain is falling.

They wish to break open the doors.

The sentinels had received their orders, and they present
their bayonets.

One of the deputies proposes that they should meet at
the Place d'Armes.

Another that it should be at Marly.

Guillotin proposes the Jeu de Paume.*

Gnillotin !

What a strange thing that it should be Guillotin, whose
name, by adding an e to it, should become so celebrated
four years afterward, — how strange that it should be Guil-
lotin who proposed the Jeu de Paume !

The Jeu de Paume, unfurnished, dilapidated, open to
the four winds of heaven.

To this great demonstration the king replies by the
royal word, " Veto ! "

M. de Breze is sent to the rebels, to order them to
disperse.

" ^Ye are here by the will of the people,*' said Mirabean,
** and we will not leave this place but with bayonets pointed
at our breasts ! "

And not as it has been asserted, that he said. ''By the
force of bayonets." Why is it that there is always behind
great men some paltry rhetorician who spoils his sayings,
under pretext of arranging them ?

Why was there such a rhetorician behind Mirabeau at
the Jeu de Paume ?

And behind Cambronne at Waterloo ?

Tlie reply was at once reported to the king.

Tie walked about for some time with the air of a man
who was suffering from ennui.

*' They will not go away ?" said he.
* The tennis-court.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 147

**No, sire."

*' Well, then, leave them where they are.'*

As is here showu, royalty was already bending beneath
the hand of the people, and bending very low.

From the 21st if June to the 12th of July, all appeared
tolerably calm, but it was that species of calm which so
frequently precedes the tempest.

It was like the uneasy dream of an uneasy slumber.

On the 11th the king formed the resolution, urged to it
by the queen, the Count d'Artois, the Polignacs — in fact,
the whole of the Camarilla of Versailles j in short, he
dismissed Xecker.

On the 12th this intelligence reached Paris.

The effect which it produced has been already seen. On
the evening of the 13th Billot arrived just in time to see
the barriers burning.

On the 13th, in the evening, Paris was defending itself.

On the 14th, in the morning, Paris was ready to attack.

On the morning of the 14th Billot cried, " To the Bas-
tile ! " and three thousand men, imitating Billot, reiterated
the same cry, which was about to become that of the whole
population of Paris.

The reason was that there had existed during five cen-
turies a monument which weighed heavily upon the breast
of France, like the infernal rock upon the shoulders of
Sisyphus.

" Only that, less confiding than the Titan in his strength,
France had never attempted to throw it off.

This monument, the seal of feudality, imprinted on the
forehead of Paris, was the Bastile.

The king was too good, as Mme. de Hausset had said, to
have a head cut off.

But the king sent people to the Bastile.

When once a man became acquainted with the Bastile,
by order of the king, that man was forgotten, sequestrated
interred, annihilated.

He remained there until the king remembered him ; and
kings have so many new things occurring around them
every day, and of which they are obliged to think, that
they often forget to think of old matters.

Moreover, in France there was not only one Bastile, there
were twenty otlier Bastiles, which were called Fort I'Ev^que
St. Lazare the Chdtelet, the Conciergerie, Viucennes, the

148 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Castle of La Roche, tlie Castle of If, the Isles of St. Mar-
guerite, Pignerolles, etc.

Only the fortress at the Gate St. Antoiue was called the
Bustile, as Rome was called the city.

It was the Bastile, par excellence, alouc ; it was of more
importance than all the others.

During nearly a whole century, the governorship of the
Bastile had continued in one and the same family.

The grandfather of this elect race was M. de Chateau-
neuf ; his son Lavrilliere succeeded him, who, in turn, was
succeeded by his grandson, St. Florentin. The dynasty
became extinct in 1777.

During this triple reign, the greater part of which
passed during the reign of Louis XV. , it would be impos-
sible to state the number of Jeff res de cachet.* St. Florentin
alone received more than fifty thousand.

The lettres de cachet were a great source of revenue.

They were sold to fathers who wished to get rid of their
sons.

They were sold to women who wished to get rid of their
husbands.

The prettier the wives were, the less did the lettr» de
cachet cost them.

It then became, between them and the minister, an ex-
change of polite attentions, and that was all.

Since the end of the reign of Louis XIV., all the state
prisons, and particularly the Bastile, were in the hands of
the Jesuits.

Among the prisoners, it will be recollected, the following
were of the greatest note.

The Iron Mask, Lauzun, Latude.

The Jesuits were connoisseurs ; for greater security they
confessed the prisoners.

For greater security still, the prisoners were buried under
supposititious names.

The Iron Mask, it will be remembered, was buried under
the name of Marchiali. lie had remained forty-live yeara
in prison.

Lauzun remained there fourteen years.

Ijatude, thirty years.

But, at all events, the Iron Mask and Lauzun had com-
mitted heinous crimes.

* Secret orders of imprisonmeut.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 149

The Iron Mask, wlietlier brother or not of Louis XIV.,
it is asserted, resembled King Louis XIV. so strongly
that it was almost impossible to distinguish the one from
the other.

It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to resemble a king.

Lauznn had been very near marrying, or did actually
marry, the Grand Mademoiselle.

It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to marry the niece
of King Louis XIII. , the granddaughter of Henry IV.

But Latude, poor devil, what had he done ?

He liad dared to fall in love with Mile. Poisson, Dame
de Pompadour, the king's mistress.

He had written a note to her.

This note, which a respectable woman would have sent
back to the man who wrote it, was handed by Mme. de
Pompadour to M. de Sartines, the lieutenant-general of
police.

And Latude, arrested, fugitive, taken and retaken, re-
mained thirty years locked up in the Bastile, the Castle of
Vincennes and Bicetre.

It was not, therefore, without reason that the Bastile
was abhorred.

The people hated it as if it were a living thing ; they
had formed of it a gigantic chimera, one of those monsters
like those of Gevaudan, who pitilessly devour the human
species.

The grief of poor Sebastian Gilbert will, therefore, be
fully comprehended when he svas informed that his father
was in the Bastile.

Billot's conviction will be also understood : that the
doctor would never be released from his prison unless he was
released by force.

The frantic impulse of the people will be also understood
when Billot vociferated, " To the Bastile ! "'

Only that it was a senseless idea, as the soldiers had re-
marked, that the Bastile could be taken.

The Bastile had provisions, a garrison, artillery.

The Bastile had walls which were fifteen feet thick at
their summit and forty at their base.

Tlio Bastile had a governor, whose name was De Lauuay

who had stored thirty thousand pounds of gunpowder in

his cellars, and who had sworn, in case of being surprised

by a coup de main, to blow up the Bastile, and with it

vhalf the Faubourg 8t. Antoine.

150 TAKING THE BASTILE.

CHAPTER XIV.

Billot still walked on, but it was no longer he who
shouted. The crowd, delighted with his martial air, rec-
ognized in this man one of their own class ; commenting
on his words and action, they followed him, still increas-
ing like the waves of the incoming tide.

Beliind Billot, when he issued from the narrow streets
and came upon the Quay St. Michael, marched more than
three thousand men, armed with cutlasses, or pikes, or
guns.

They all cried, " To the Bastile ! to the Bastile ! "

Billot counseled with his own thoughts. The reflections
which we have made at the close of the last chapter pre-
sented themselves to his mind, and by degrees all the
fumes of his feverish excitement evaporated.

Then he saw clearly into his own mind.

The enterprise was sublime, but insensate. This was
easily to be understood, from the affrighted and ironical
countenances on which were reflected tlie impression pro-
duced by the cry of "To the Bastile ! "

But, nevertheless, he was only the more strengthened in
his resolution.

He could not, however, but comprehend that he was
responsible to motliers, wives, and children for tlie lives of
the men who were following him, and he felt bound to use
every possible precaution.

Billot, therefore, began by leading his little army on to
the square in the front of the Hotel de Ville.*

There he appointed his lieutenant and other officers —
watch-dogs — to restrain the flock.

"Let us see," tliought Billot, ''there is a power in
France — there are even two — there are even three. Lot
ns consult."

He entered the Hotel de Ville, asking who was the chief
of the municipality.

He was told it was the provost of the merchants, the
Mayor of Paris, M. de Flesselles.

* Town House or City Uall.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 151

*' Ah ! ah ! " cried he, with a dissatisfied air, " Monsieur
de Flesselles, a noble — that is to say, an enemy of the
people."

" Why, no," they replied to him ; " he is a man of
talent."

Billot ascended the staircase of the Hotel de Ville.

In the ante-chamber he met an usher.

" I wish to speak with Monsieur Flesselles," said he,
perceiving that the usher was approaching him to ask him
what he wanted.

" Impossible ! " replied the usher ; ''he is now occupied
in drawing up the lists of a militia force which the city is
about to organize."

''That falls out marvelously well," observed Billot;
**for I also am organizing a militia, and as I have already
three thousand men enlisted, I am as good as Monsieur de
Flesselles, who has not a single soldier yet afoot. Enable
me, therefore, to speak with Monsieur de Flesselles, and
that instantly. Oh ! look out of the window, if you will."

The usher had, in fact, cast a rapid glance upon the
quays, and had perceived Billot's men. He, therefore,
hastened to inform the mayor, to whom he showed the
three thousand men in question, as a postscript to his
message.

This inspired the provost with a sort of respect for the
person who wished to see him ; he left the council-room
and went into the ante-chamber, looking about for his
visitor.

He perceived Billot, guessed that he was the i^erson,
and smiled.

*' It was you who were asking for me, was it not ? " said
he.

"You are Monsieur de Flesselles, Provost of the Mer-
chants, I believe ? " replied Billot.

*' Yes, sir. In what way can I be of service to you ?
Only speak quickly, for my mind is much occupied."

" Good Monsieur Provost," continued Billot, " how
many powers are there in France ? "

" Why, that is as people may choose to understand it,
my dear sir," replied Flesselles.

"Say it, then, as you yourself understand it."

" Were you to consult Monsieur Bailly, he would tell
j^oa there is but one, the National Assembly ; if you con-

152 TAKING THE BASTILE.

suit Monsieur de Dreux Breze, he would also tell yon there
is but one — the king."

" And you, Monsieur Provost — of these two opinions
which is yours ? "

'* My own opinion, and above all, at the present moment
is, that there is but one."

" The assembly or the king ? " demanded Billot.

•* Neither the one nor the other — it is the nation," re-
plied Flesselles, playing with the frill of his shirt.

" Ah ! ah ! the nation ?" cried the farmer.

" Yes ; that is to say, those gentlemen who are waiting
down yonder on the quay with knives and roastiug-spits.
The nation — by that 1 mean everybody."

" You may, perhaps, be right, Monsienr de Flesselles,"
replied Billot ; ''and they were not wrong in telling me
that you are a man of talent."

De Flesselles bowed.

" To which of these three powers do you think of appeal-
ing, sir?" asked Flesselles.

"Upon my faith," said Billot, "I believe that when
one has anything very important to ask, a man had better
address himself at once to God and not to His saints."

" Which means to say that you are about to address
yourself to the king ? "

*'I am inclined to do so."

" Would it be indiscreet to inquire what it is yon think
of asking of the king ? "

** The liberation of Doctor Gilbert, who is in the Bas-
tile."

''Doctor Gilbert?" solemnly asked M. de Flesselles;
" he is a writer of pamphlets, is he not ? "

" Say a philosopher, sir."

**That is one and the same thing, my dear Monsienr
Billot. I think you stand but a poor chance of obtaining
what you desire from the king."

" And why so ?"

** In the first place, because, if the king sent Doctor
Gilbert to the Bastile, lie must have had reason for so
doing."

"'Tis well," replied Billot ; "he shall give me his rea-
sons on the subject, and I will give him mine."

" My dear Monsieur Billot, the king is just now very
bnsy, and ho would not even receive you."

TAKING IHE BASTILE. I53

" Oh ! if he does not receive me, I shall find some
means of getting in without his permission."

*' Yes ; and when you have once got in, you will find
there Monsieur Dreux Breze, who wil. have you shoved
out-of-doors."

" Who will have me shoved out-of-doors ? "

*' Yes ; he wished to do that to the National Assembly
altOj^ether. It is true that he did not succeed ; but that
is a stronger reason for his being in a furious rage, and
taking his revenge on you,"

"Very well ; then I will apply to the assembly."

*'The road to Versailles is intercepted."

** I will go there with my three thousand men."

" Take care, my dear sir. You would find on your
road some four or five thousand Swiss soldiers and two or
three thousand Austrians, who woiild make only a mouth-
ful of you and your three thousand men. In the twink-
ling of an eye you would be swallowed."

"Ah, the devil ! What ought I to do, then ?"

" Do what you please ; but do me the service to take
away your three thousand men who are beating the pave-
ment yonder with their pikes, and who are smoking.
There are seven or eight thousand pounds of powder in
our cellars here. A single spark might blow us all
up."

" In that case, I think, I will neither address myself to
the king nor to the National Assembly. I will address
myself to the nation, and we will take the Bastile."

" And with what ? "

"With the eight thousand pounds of powder that you
are going to give me. Monsieur Provost."

" Ah, really " said Flesselles, in a jeering tone.

" It is precisely as I say, sir. The keys of the cellars,
if you please."

" Iley ! you are jesting, sure," cried the provost.

"No, sir, I am not jesting," said Billot.

And seizing Flesselles by the collar of his coat with both
hands, " The keys," cried he, " or I call up my men."

Flesselles turned as pale as death. His lips and his
teeth were closed convulsively ; but when he spoke his
voice was in no way agitated, and he did not even change
the ironical tone he had assumed.

" In fact, sir," said he, " you are doing me a great serv-

154 TAKING THE BASTILE.

ice by relieving me from tlie charge of this powder, I
will, therefore, order the keys to be delivere<t to you, as
you desire. Only please not to forget that I am your first
magistrate, and that if you have the misfortune to" conduct
yourself toward me before others in the way you have done
when alone with me, an hour afterward you wov.ld be
hanged by the town guards. You insist on having this
powder ? "

*' I insist," replied Billot.

*' And you will distribute it yourself ? "

" Myself."

** And when ? "

** This very moment."

*' Your pardon. Let us understand each other. I have
business wliich will detain me here about a quarter of an
hour, and should rather like, if it is the same to you, that
the distribution should not be commenced until I have left
the place. It has been predicted to me that I shall die a
violent death ; but I acknowledge that I have a very decided
repugnance to being blown into the air."

"Be it so. In a quarter of an hour, then. But now,
in my turn, I have a request to make."

" What is it ? "

'^ Let us both go close uj^ to that window."

*' For what purpose ? "

** I wish to make you popular."

" I am greatly obliged ; but in what manner ?"

" You shall see."

Billot took the provost to the window, which was open,
and called out to his friends in the square below :

" My friends," said he, "you still wish to take the Bas-
tile, do you not ? "

'*Yes — yes — yes!" shouted three or four thousand
voices.

" But you want gunpowder, do you not ? "

" Yes — gunpowder ! gunpowder ! "

" Well, then, here is his honor, the provost, who is will-
ing to give you all he has in the cellars of the Hotel de
Ville. Thank him for it, my friends."

"Long live the Provost of the Merchants ! Long live
Monsieur de Flesselles ! " shouted the whole crowd.

"Thanks, my friends; thanks for myself — thanks for
him I "' cried Billot.

TAKING THE BASTILE. I55

Then, turning toward the provost :

"And now, sir," said Billot, " it is no longer necessary
that I should take you by the collar, while here alone with
you, or before all the world ; for if you do not give me the
gunpowder, the nation, as you call it, the nation will tear
you to pieces."

" Here are the keys, sir," said the provost. " You have
so persuasive a mode of asking, that it does not even
admit of a refusal."

"■ What you say really encourages me," said Billot, wlio
appeared to be meditating some otlier project.

*' Ah, the deuce ! Can you have anything else to ask
of me?"

'' Yes. You are acquainted with the governor of the
Bastile ? "

*' Monsieur de Launay ? "

" I do not know what his name is."

*' His name is De Launay."

" Be it so. Well, do you know Monsieur de Launey ? "

" He is a friend of mine."

" In that case you must desire that no misfortune should
happen to him."

" In fact, I should desire it."

" Well, then, the way to prevent any misfortune hap-
pening to him is, that he should surrender the Bastile to
me, or, at all events, liberate the doctor."

"You do not imagine, surely, that I should have in-
fluence enough with him to induce him to surrender to
you either his prisoner or his fortress, do you ? "

" That is my affair. All that I ask is, that you will give
me an introduction to him."

" My dear Monsieur Billot, I forewarn you that if you
go into the Bastile, you will go into it alone."

"Very well."

" I forewarn you, moreover, that if you enter it alone,
you will, perhaps, not get out again."

" Marvelously well."

" Then I will give you your permission to go into the
Bastile."

"I will wait for it."

" But it will be on still another condition."

" What is that ? "

** It is that you will not come to me again to-morrow and

15G TAKING THE BASTILE.

ask me for a passport to the moon. I forewarn you that
I am not acquainted with any one in those regions."

** Flesselles ! Flesselles !" said a hollow and' threatening
voice from behind the provost of the merchants, " if you
continue to wear two faces — the one which laughs with the
aristocrats, the other which smiles upon the people, you
will perhaps receive, between this and to-morrow morning,
a passport for a world from which no one returns.^'

Tiie provost turned round, shuddering.

" Who is this that speaks thus ? ^' said he.

« 'Tis I— Marat."

"Marat, the philosopher ! Marat, the physician !" ex-
claimed Billot.

*' Yes," replied the same voice.

** Yes — Marat, the philosopher ; Marat, the physician,'*
repeated Flesselles, " who, in this last capacity, ought to
attend to curing coughs, which would have been a sure
means of now having a goodly number of patients."

** Monsieur de Flesselles," replied the lugubrious inter-
locutor, ** this worthy citizen has asked you for a passport
which will facilitate his seeing Monsieur de Launay. I
would observe to you tliat not only is he waiting for you,
but that tliree thousand men are waiting for him."

*' 'Tis well, sir ; he shall soon have it."

Flesselles went to a table, passed one hand over his brow,
and with the other seizing a pen, he rapidly wrote several
lines.

" Here is your safe-conduct," said he, delivering the
paper to Billot.

" Read it," said Marat.

"1 cannot read," said Billot.

*' Well, then, give it to me. I can read."

Billot handed the paper to Marat.

This passport was conceived in the following terms :

"Moxsiet:r CovERi^OR, — We, Provost of the Mer-
chants of the city of Paris, send to you Monsieur Billot,
in order to concert with you as to the interests of the said
city.

" 14th July, 1789. De Flesselles.

»

*' fJood ! " said Billot ; " give it to me."

** You find this jjassport good as it is ?" said Marat.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 157

"Undoubtedly."

** Stop a minute. The provost is going to add a post-
script to it, which will make it better."

And he went up to Flesselles, who had remained stand-
ing, his hand on the table, and who looked with a disdain-
ful air at the two men with whom he was so particularly
engaged, and a third one, half naked, who had just pre-
sented himself at the door, leaning upon a musketoon.

It was Pitou, who had followed Billot, and who held
himself ready to obey the farmer's orders, be they what
they might.

*' Sir," said Marat to Flesselles, ** the postscript which
you are about to add, and which will render the passport
so much better, is the following."

" Say on. Monsieur Marat."

Marat placed the paper on the table, and pointing with
his finger to the place on which the provost was to write
the required postcript :

" The Citizen Billot," said he, ** having the character
of bearer of a flag of truce, I confide his care to your
honor."

Flesselles looked at Marat, as if he would rather have
smashed his flat face with his fist than do that which he
had requested.

'*' Would you resist, sir ? " demanded Marat.

" No," replied Flesselles ; *' for, after all, you only ask
me what is strictly right.'*

And he wrote the postscript demanded of him.

*' However, gentlemen, you will be pleased to well ob-
serve this, that I do not answer for the safety of Monsieur
Billot."

" And I — I will be answerable for it," said Marat, jerk-
ing the paper out of his hands ; *'for your liberty is the
guarantee of his liberty — your head for the safety of his
head. Ilere, worthy "Billot," continued Marat, "here is
your passport."

*' Labrie !" cried M. de Flesselles— " Labrie I"

A lackey in grand livery entered the room.

*' My carriage," said tii'e provost.

"It is waiting for you, sir, in the courtyard.**

'* Let us go, then, said the provost. " There is nothing
else which you desire, gentlemen ? "

"No," simultaneously replied Billot and Marat.

158 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Am I to let them pcass ?'' inquired Piton.

** M}' friend," said Flesselles to him, " I would observe
to you that you are rather too indecently attired to mount
guard at my door. If you insist upon remaining here,
turn your cartouche-box round in front, and set your back
against tlie wall."

" Am I to let them pass ?" Pitou repeated, with an air
which indicated that he did not greatly relish the jest of
which he had been the subject.

" Yes," said Billot.

Pitou made way for the provost to pass by him.

" Perhaps you were wrong in allowing that man to go,"
said Marat. *' He would have been a good hostage to have
kept. But, in any case, let him go where he will, you
may feel perfectly assured that 1 will find him again."

*' Labrie," said the provost of the merchants, as he was
getting into his carriage, " they are going to distribute
powder here. Should the Hotel de Ville perchance blow
up, I should like to be out of the way of the splinters.
Let us get out of gunshot, Labrie, out of gunshot."

The carriage rattled through the gateway, and ap-
peared upon the square, on which were growling some
four or five tliousand persons.

Flesselles was afraid that they might misinterpret his
departure, which might be considered as a flight.

Jle leaned half-way out of the door.

*' To the National Assembly ! " cried he, in a loud voice
to the coachman.

This drew upon him from the crowd a Iqud and con-
tinued outburst of applause.

Marat and Billot were on the balcony, and had heard
the last words of Flesselles.

" My head against his," said Marat, *' that he is not
going to the National Assembly, but to tlie king."

'MVould it not be well to have him stopped?" said
Billot.

'* No," replied !Marat, with his hideous smile; ''make
yourself easy ; however quickly he may go, we shall go still
quicker than ho. But now for the gunpowder."

" Yes, to the gunpowder," said Billot.

And they both went down the great staircase, foilowed
by Pitou.

TAKING THE BASTILE. ^59

CHAPTER XV.

As M. de Flesselles liad said, there were eight thonsand
pounds of gunpowder in the cellars of the Hotel de Ville.

Marat and Billot went into the first cellar with a lan-
tern, which they snspended to a hook in the ceiling.

Piton mounted guard at the door.

The powder was in small kegs, containing each about
twenty pounds. Men were sttxtioned upon the stairs,
forming a chain which reached the square, and they at
once began to send up the kegs.

There was at first a momentary confusion. It was not
known whether there would be powder enough for every-
body, and they all rushed forward to secure their shai-e.
But the chain formed by Billot at length succeeded in
making the people wait patiently fci' their turn, and the
distribution was effected with something like an approach
to order.

Every citizen received half a pound of powder — about
thirty or forty shots.

But when every one had received the powder, it was
perceived that muskets were sadly deficient ; there were
scarcely five hundred among the whole crowd.

While the distribution was going on, a portion of this
furious population who were crying out for arms went up
to the rooms where the electors held their sittings. They
were occupied in forming the National Guard, of which
the usher had spoken to Billot.

They had just decreed that this civic militia should be
composed of forty-eight thousand men. This militia but
yet existed in the decree, and they were disputing as to
the general who should command it.

It was in the midst of this discussion that the people
invaded the Hotel de Ville. They had organized them-
selves. They only asked to march — all they required was
arms.

At that moment the noise of a carriage coming into the
courtyard was heard. It was the provost of the merchants,
who had not l)een allowed to proceed upon his journey,
although he had exhibited a mandate from the king.

160 TAKING THE BASTILE.

ordering hitn to proceed to Versailles, and he was brought
back by force to the Hotel de Ville.

*' Give us arms ! give us arms ! " cried the crowd, as
soon as they perceived him at a distance.

" Arms ! " cried he. " I have no arms ; but there must
be some at the arsenal."

" To the arsenal ! to the arsenal ! " cried the crowd.

And five or six thousand men rushed ou to the Quay de
la Grdve.

The arsenal was empty.

They returned, with bitter lamentations, to the H6tel
de Ville.

The provost had no arms, or, rather, would not give
them. Pressed by the people, he had the idea of sending
them to tlie Chartreux.

The Chartreux opened its gates ; they searched it in
every direction, but did not find even a pocket-pistol.

During this time, Flesselles, having been informed that
Billot and Marat were still in the cellars of the Hotel de
Ville, completing the distribution of the gunpowder, pro-
posed to send a deputation to De Launay, to propose to
him that he should withdraw the cannon from his ram-
parts, so as to be out of sight.

That which the evening before had made the crowd
hoot most obstreperously was these guns, which, stretch-
ing forth their long necks, were seen beyond the tur-
reted parapets. Flesselles hoped that, by causing them to
disappear, the people would be contented by the conces-
sion, and would withdraw satisfied.

The deputation had just set forth, when the people
returned in great fury.

On hearing the cries they uttered. Billot and Marat ran
upstairs into the courtyard.

Flesselles, from an interior balcony, endeavored to calm
the people. He proposed a decree which should author-
rize the districts to manufacture fifty thousand pikes.

The people were about to accept this pro])osal.

*' Decidedly this man is betraying us, said ^larat.

Then, turning to Billot :

"Go to the Bastile," said he, ''and do what you pro-
posed to do. In an hour I will send you there twenty
thousand men, and each man with a musket ou his shouU
der."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 161

Billot, at first sight, had felt great confidence in this
man, whose name had become so popular that it had
reached even him. He did not even ask him how he cal-
culated on procuring them. An abb6 was there, imbued
with the general enthusiasm of the moment, and crying,
like all the rest, "To the Bastile ! " Billot did not like
abbes ; but this one pleased him. He gave him the charge
of continuing the distribution, which the worthy abbe
accepted.

Then Marat mounted upon a post. There was at that
moment the most frightful noise and tumult.

"Silence!" cried he. "I am Marat, and I wish to
speak."

They were at once quieted, as if by magic, and every eye
was directed toward the orator.

" You wish for arms ? " he said.

" Yes, yes ! " replied thousands of voices.

"To take the Bastile .? '*

" Yes, yes, yes ! "

" Well, then, come with me, and you shall have them."

** And where ? "

" To the Invalides, where there are twenty-five thousand
muskets."

"To the Livalides ! to the Invalides ! " cried every voice,

" And now," said Marat to Billot, who had just called
Pitou, "you will go to the Bastile ? "

"Yes."

"Stay. It might happen that before my men arrive
you may stand in need of assistance."

" In fact," said Billot, " that is possible."

Marat tore out a leaf from a small memorandum-book,
and wrote four words upon it with a pencil.

"This comes from Marat."

' Then he drew a sign upon the paper.

"Well! "cried Billot, "what would you have me do
with this note, since you do not tell rae the name or the
address of tlie person to whom I am to deliver it ?"

" As to the address, tlio man to wiiom I recommend you
has none ; as to his name, it is well known. Ask the first
workman you iiiay meet for Gonchon, the Mirabeau of the
people."

" Gonchon — you will remember that name, Pitoa."

162 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*'Gonchon or Gonchoniiis," said Pitou ; ** I shall not
forget it."

" To tlie Invalides ! to the Iiivalides I" howled the mob,
with increasing ferocity.

*MVell, then, go I" said Marat to Billot, *' and may the
genius of Liberty march before thee ! "

" To the Invalides I " he then cried, in liis turn.

And he went down the Quay de la Gr^ve, followed by
more than twenty thousand men.

Billot, on his side, took with liim some five or six
thousand. These were all armed in one way or another.

At the moment when tliey were about to proceed along
the bank of the river, and the remainder were going toward
the boulevard, the provost of the merchants called to them
from a window.

" My friends," said he, '' why is it that I see a green
cockade in your hats ?"

They were the leaves of the linden-trees of Camille Dea-
moulins, which many had adopted merely from seeing
others wear them, but without even knowing their signifi-
cation.

*' Hope ! hope ! " cried several voices.

*' Yes; but the color that denotes hope is, at the same
time, that of the Count d'Artois. Would you have the
air of wearing the livery of a prince ? "'

" No, no ! " cried all the crowd, in chorus, and Billot
louder than the rest.

" Well, then, you ought to change that cockade ; and,
if yoTi will wear a livery, let it, at least, be that of the city
of Paris, the mother of us all — blue and red, my friends,
blue and red." *

** Yes, yes ! " cried every tongue ; ''blue and red."

Upon these words, every one trampled under foot his
green cockade, every one called for ribbons ; as if by en-
chantment, the windows round the square were opened,
and blue and red ribbons rained down in floods.

But all the ribbons that fell scarcely sufliced for a thou-
sand men.

* Some time afterwai'd, M. de Lafayette also made the observa-
tion that bhie and red were likewise the colors of the House of
Orleans, and added to them a tliird color, wliite, sjiyinp; to tliose
who received it from him, " I give you a cockade that will make
the tour of the whole world."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 163

Instantly, aprons, silk gowns, scarfs, cnrtains were torn,
sti'ipped, and cut in fragments ; these fragments were
forzned into bows, rosettes, and scarfs. Every one took
his share.

Af*^er which Billot's small army again moved for-
ward.

It kept on recruiting as it advanced ; all the arteries of
the Faubourg St. Antoiue sent to it as it passed the most
ardent and the most active of their population.

They reached, in tolerably good order, the end of the
Rue Lesdiguieres, where already a mass of curious lookers-
on — some timid, others calm, and others insolent — were
gazing at the towers of the Bastile, exposed to an ardent
sun.

The arrival of about a hundred of the French Guards
from the boulevards.

The arrival of the popular drums by the Faubourg St.
Antoine.

The arrival of Billot and his troop at once changed the
character and the aspect of the assembled crowd ; the
timid became emboldened, the calm became excited, and
the insolent began to threaten.

"Down with the cannon! down with the cannon!'*
cried twenty thousand voices, threatening with their
clinched fists the heavy guns which stretched forth their
brazen necks from the embrasures of the platforms.

Just at that moment, as if the governer of the Bastile
had heard these cries and was obeying these injunctions of
the crowd, some artillerymen approached the guns, which
they drew in, and at last they disappeared entirely.

Tlie crowd clapped their hands ; they had then become
a power, since the governor had yielded to their threats.

Notwithstanding this, the sentinels continued pacing
backward and forward on the platforms. At every post
was an Invalide and a Swiss.

After having cried, "Down with the cannon 1** the
crowd shouted "Down with the Swiss \" It was a con-
tinuation of the cry of the night before, " Down with the
Germans ! "

But the Swiss did not the less continue their guard,
crossing the Invalides in their measured pacings up and
down.

One of those who cried, "Down with the Swiss,"

164 TAKING THE BASTILE.

became impatient ; he had a gun in his hand ; he pointed
tlie muzzle of his gun at the sentinel and tired.

The ball struck the gray wall of the Bastile one foot
below the coping stone of the tower, and immediately in
front of the spot where the Swiss had passed. At the
spot where the shot had struck, it left a white mark,
but the sentinel did not stop, and did not even turn his
head.

A loud rumor soon arose around the man who had fired,
and thus was given the signal of attack as unheard of as it
was senseless. There was more of terror than of anger in
this rumor. Many persons conceived it was a crime pun-
ishable with death to have thus fired a musket-shot at the
Bastile.

Billot gazed upon the dark-green mass like to those fab-
ulous monsters which in ancient legends are represented
to us as covered with scales. He counted the embrasures
at which the cannon might at any given moment be rolled
back to their places. He counted the number of muskets,
the muzzles of which might be directed through the loop-
holes at the assembled crowd.

And Billot shook his head, recalling to mind the words
nttered by Flesselles.

** "We shall never be able to get in there," said lie.

*' And why shall we never be able to get in ? " said a
voice close beside him.

Billot turned round and saw a man with a savage coun-
tenance, dressed in rags, and whose eyes sparkled like two
stars.

** Because it appears to me impossible to take such a
niass as that by force."

''The taking of the Bastile," said the man, *' is not a
deed of war, but an act of faith. Believe, and thou shalt
succeed."

*' Patience," said Billot, feeling in his pocket for his
passport. The man was deceived as to his meaning.

** Patience," cried he ; " oh, yes, I understand you —
you are fat — you — you look like a farmer."

"And I am one, in fact," said Billot.

" Then I can well understand why you say patience.
You have been always well fed ; but look behind you for
ft moment and see those specters who are now surrounding
us— see their dried-up veins, count their bones through

TAKING THE BASTILE. 165

the rents in their garments, and then ask them whether
they understand the word patience."

"This is one who speaks well," said Pitou ; ''hut he
terrifies me."

"He does not terrify me," said Billot; and turning
again toward the man :

'• Yes, patience," he said, " but only for another quar-
ter of an hour, that's all."

"Ah! uh ! " cried the man, smiling; "a quarter of
an hour ; that, indeed, is not too much. And what will
you do between this and a quarter of an hour ? "

" During that time T shall have visited the Bastile, I
shall know the number of its garrison, 1 shall know the
intentions of its governor, I shall know, in fine, the way
into it."

" Yes, if after that you could only find the way out
of it."

'•' Well, supposing that I do not get out of it ; there is a
man who will come and show me the way."

" And who is this man ? "

" Gonchon, the Mirabeau of the people."
. The man gave a start. His eyes emitted flashes of fire.

'* Do you know him ? " inquired he.

"No."

" Well, what mean you, then ? "

" Why, I'm going to know him ; for I was told that the
first to whom I might speak on the square hefore the Bas-
tile would lead me to him. You are on the square of the
Bastile, take me to him."

" What do you want with him ? "

" To deliver to him this paper."
I " From whom is it ?"

" From Marat, the physician."

" From Marat ! You know Marat ? " exclaimed the
man.

" I have just left him."

"Where?"

"At the Hotel deVille."

" What is he doing ? "

"He is going to arm twenty thousand men at the
Invalides."

" In that case, give me that paper. I am Gonchou/'

Billot drew back a step.

/

16G TAKING THE BASTILE.

'■' You are Gouchou ? " cried he.

**My friends," said the man in rags, "here is one who
does not know me, and who is asking whether it is true
that I am Gonchon."

The crowd burst into a loud laugli. It appeared to all
these men that it was impossible that any one could be 60
iguoi-ant as not to know their favorite orator.

" Long live Gonchon ! " cried two or three thousand
voices.

*' Take it," said Billot, handing the paper to him.

" Friends," cried Gonchon, after having read it, and
laying his hand on Billot's shoulder, " this is a brother.
Marat recommends him ; we can, therefore, rely upon
him. What is your name ? " said he to the farmer.

" My name is Billot."

" And mine," rejoined Gonchon, ^' is liache ; and be-
tween us both I trust we shall be able to do something." *

The crowd smiled at this sanguinary jest.

*' Yes, yes, we shall soon do something ! " cried they.

"Well, what are we going to do?" asked several
voices.

"Why, zounds!" cried Gonchon, *^we are going to
take the Bastile."

" This is as it should be," cried Billot ; " that is what I
call speaking. Listen to me, brave Gonchon. How many
men have you to back you ? "

** Thirty thousand, or somewhere near that."

** Thirty thousand men you have at your disposal ;
twenty thousand who will soon be here from thelnvalides,
and ten thousand who are already here — why, 'tis more than
enough to insure our success, or we shall never succeed
at all."

"We shall succeed," replied Gonchon.

" 1 believe bo. Well, then, call together your thirty
thousand men. I, in the meantime, will go to the governor,
and summon him to surrender. If he surrenders, so much
the better ; we shall avoid much bloodshed. If he will
not surrender, the blood that will be spilled will fall upon
his head ; and in these days blood that is spilled in an
unjust cause brings down misfortunes with it. Ask the
Germans if it be not so."

* Billot, in French, meaTis block— the block on which crimijials'
heads are etruck off. Haclie means ax. — Translatok.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 167

" How long do you expect to remain with the gover-
nor ? " asked Gouchou.

*' As long as I possibly can ; until the Bastile is com-
pletely invested, if it be possible. When I come out again
the attack will begin."

*' 'Tis understood. "

'* Yon do not mistrnst me ? " said Billot to Gonchon,
holding out his hand to him.

** Who — I ?" replied Gonchon, with a smile of disdain,
at the same time pressing the hand of the stout farmer,
and with a strength that could not have been expected
from his emaciated appearance ; " I mistrust you ? And
for what reason, pray ? It it were my will, upon a word,
a sign given by me, I could have you pounded like glass,
even were you sheltered by those formidable towers which
to-morrow will no longer exist — were you protected by
these soldiers who this evening will have espoused our party
or will have ceased to exist. Go, then, and rely on
Gonchon as he relies on Billot."

Billot was convinced, and walked toward the entrance
of the Bastile, while the strange person with whom he had
been conversing darted down the faubourg amid shouts,
repeated a thousand times, of :

"Long live Gonchon! long live the Mirabeau of the
people ! "

" I do not know what the Mirabeau of the nobles may
be," said Pitou to Billot, " but I think our Mirabeau a
hideously ugly personage."

CHAPTER XVI.

We will not describe the Bastile — it would be useless.

It lives as an eternal image, both in the memory of the
old and in the imagination of the yonng.

We shall content ourselves with merely stating that,
seen from the boulevard, it presented, in front of the
square then called the Place de la Bastile, two twin
towers, while its two fronts ran parallel with the banks of
the canal which now exists.

The entrance to the Bastile was defended, in the first

168 TAKING THE BASTILE.

place, by a guard-house, then by two lines of sentinels,
and besides these by two drawbridges.

After having passed through these several obstacles, you
came to the courtyard of the government house — that is to
say, the residence of the governor.

From tliis courtyard u gallery led to the ditches of the
Bastile.

At this other entrance, which opened upon the ditches,
was a drawbridge, a guard-house, and an iron gate.

At the first entrance they wished to stop Billot ; but
Billot shows the passport he received from Flesselies, and
they allow him to pass on.

Billot then perceives that Pitou is following him. Pitou
had no permission ; but he would have followed the
farmer's steps down to the infernal regions, or would have
ascended to the moon.

''Remain outside," said Billot. *' Should I not come
out again, it would be well there should be some one to
remind the people that I have come in."

" That is perfectly right," said Pitou. *' How long am
I to wait before I remind them of it ? "

*' One hour."

** And the casket ? " inquired Pitou.

*'Ah! you remind me. Well, then, should I not get
out again, should Gonchon not take the Bastile, or, in
short, if, after having taken it, I should not be found, you
must tell Doctor Gilbert, whom they will find, perhaps,
that men who came from Paris took from me the casket
which he confided to my care five years ago ; that I, on
the instant, started off to inform him of what had hap-
pened ; that on arriving at Paris I was informed that he
was in the Bastile ; that I attempted to take the Bastile,
and that in the attempt I left my skin there, which was
altogether at his service."

'"Tiswell, Father Billot, "said Pitou ; ^*only 'tis rather
a long story, and I am afraid I may forget it."

" Forget what I have said to yon ? "

''Yes."

" I will repeat it to you, then."

" Xo," said a voice close to Billot's ear ; " it would be
better to write it."

" I do not know how to write," said Billot.

** 1 do. I am an usher."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 169

*' Ah ! you are an usher, are yon ?" inquired Billot.

"• Stanislaus Millard, usher iu the court of the
Chatelet."

And he drew from his pocket a loug ink-horu, in which
there were pens, paper, and ink — in fine, all that was
necessary for writing.

He was a man about forty-five years old, tall, thin, and
grave-looking, dressed entirely in black, as became his
profession.

*' Here is one who looks confoundedly like an under-
taker," muttered Pitou.

*' You say," inquired the usher, with great calmness,
*' that men who came from Paris carried off a casket which
Dr. Gilbert confided to you ? "

"Yes.';

*' That is a punishable crime."

*' These men belong to the police of Paris."
' " Infamous robbers ! " murmured Millard.
, Then, handing the paper to Pitou :

*' Here, take this, young man," said he; ''it is the
memorandum you require, and should he be killed "-—he
pointed to Billot — '* should you be killed, it is to be hoped
that I shall not be killed, too."

"And should you not be killed, what would you do ?"
asked Pitou.

"I would do that which you were to have done," re-
plied Millard.

" Thanks," said Billot.

And he held out his hand to the usher.

The usher grasped it with a vigor which could not have
been anticipated from his lank, meager body.

" Then I may fully depend upon you ? " said Billot.

"As on Marat — as on Gonchon."

" Good," said Pitou ; " they form a trinity which, I am
sure, I shall not find in Paradise."

Then, going up to Billot :

**Tell me. Father Billot, you will be prudent, will yon
not ? "

"Pitou," replied the farmer, with an eloquence which
sometimes astonished people, when proceeding from one
who had always led a country life, " forget not what I now
say to you, that the most prudent line of conduct now in
France is to be courageous."

8 — Dumas — Vol. IX.

170 TAKING THE BASTILE.

And he passed the first line of sentinels, while Pitou
returned toward the square.

At the drawbridge he was again obliged to parley.

Billot showed his passport ; the drawbridge was let
down, the iron-grated gate was opened.

Close beside the gate stood the governor.

This interior court, in which the goveruer was waiting
for Billot, was the courtyard which served as a i^romenade
for the prisoners. It was guarded by eight towers — that
is to say, by eight giants. No window opened into it.
Never did the sunshine on its pavement, which was damp
and almost muddy. It might have been thought the
bottom of an immense well.

In this courtyard was a clock, supported by figures rep-
resenting enchained captives, which measured the hours,
from which fell the regular and slow sounds of the minutes
as they passed by, as in a dungeon the droppings from the
ceiling eat into the pavement slabs on which they fall.

At the bottom of this well the prisoner, lost amid the
abyss of stone, for a moment contemplated its cold naked-
ness, and soon asked to be allowed to return to his room.

Close beside the grated gate which opened on this court-
yard, stood, as we have said, M. de Launay.

M. de Launay was a man from forty-five to fifty years
of age. On that day he was dressed in a gray coat ; he
wore the red ribbon of the Order of St. Louis, and in his
hand he carried a sword-cane.

This M. de Launay was a man of wicked disposition ;
the memoirs of Linguit had just bestowed upon him a
sorrowful celebrity ; he was almost as much detested as
the prison itself.

In fact thb De Launays, like the Chdteauneufs, the
Levrillieres, and the St. Florentins, who held the leftrcs
de cachet from father to son, tlie De Launays also from
father to son transmitted the Bastile to one another.

For, as it is well known, it was not the minister who
appointed the oflficers of this jail. At the Bastile all the
places were sold to the highest bidder, from that of the
governor himself down to that of the scullion. The gover-
nor of the Bastile was a jailer on a grand scale, an eating-
house keeper wearing epaulets, who added to his salary of
sixty thousand livres sixty thousand more, which he
extorted and plundered.

TAKING THE BASTILE 171

It was highly necessary that he should recover the capital
and interest of the money he had invested.

M. de Launay, in point of avarice, far surpassed his pre-
decessors. This might, perhaps, have arisen from his
having paid more for the place, and having foreseen that
he would not remain in it so long as they did.

He fed his whole house at the expense of his prisoners.
He had reduced the quantity of firing, and doubled the
hire of furniture in each room.

He had the right of bringing yearly into Paris a hun-
dred pipes of wine, free of duty. He sold his right to a
tavern-keeper, who brought in wines of excellent quality.
Then, with a tenth part of this duty, he purchased the
vinegar with which he supplied his prisoners.

The unhappy prisoners in the Bastile had only one con-
solation— this was a small garden, which had been formed
on one of the bastions. There they could walk — there for
a few moments they could inhale pure air, the perfume of
the flowers, and enjoy the light.

He rented this little garden to a gardener, and for the
fifty livres a year which he received from him he had
deprived the prisoners of this last enjoyment.

It is true that to rich prisoners his compliance was ex-
treme. He conducted one of them to the house of his
own mistress, who had tlius her apartments furnished,
and was kept in luxury, without its costing a stiver to him,
De Launay.

See the work entitled "The Bastile Unveiled," and you
will find in it this fact, and many others besides.

And, notwithstanding, this man was courageous.

From the previous evening the storm had been threaten-
ing around him. Since the previous evening, he perceived
the waves of this great cotnmotion, which, still ascending,
beat against his walls.

And yet he was calm, though pale.

It is true that he had to support four pieces of artillery,
ready prepared to fire ; around him, a garrison of Swiss
and Invalides ; before him only an unarmed man.

For, on entering the Bastile, Billot had given Pitou his
carbine to take care of.

He had understood that within the iron grating which
he saw before him, a weapon would be more dangerous
than useful to him.

172 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Billot, with a single glance, observed all ; the calm and
almost threatening attitude of the governor ; the Swiss
and Invalides in the several guard-houses and on the jilat-
forms ; and the silent agitation of the artillerymen, who
were stowing into the magazines of their ammunition
wagons their cartridges.

The sentinels held their muskets at the make-ready ;
the officers had their swords drawn.

The governor remained motionless ; Billot was obliged
to advance toward him ; the iron-grated gate closed behind
the bearer of the people's flag of truce with a sinister noise
of grating iron, which, brave as he was, made the marrow
of his bones chill within him.

'' What want you with me again ? " said De Launay to
him.

" Again ? " reiterated Billot ; ** it appears to me, how-
ever, that this is the first time I have seen you, and, con-
sequently, that you have yet no right to be wearied of

seemg me."'

"It is because I have been told that you come from the
Hotel de Ville."

" That is true. I came from there."

" Well, then, only just now I received a deputation from
the municipality."

" And for what purpose did it come ?"

" It came to obtain a promise from me that I would not
be the first to fire.

" And you promised that you would not ? "

*' Yes."

*' And was this all ?"

" It also came to request that I would draw in my guns."

" And you did have them drawn in ; I know that, for
I was on the square of the Bastile when this maneuver
was executed."

" And you doubtless thought that I was yielding to the
threats of the people ? "

** Why, zounds ! it did look very like it."

" Did I not tell you so, gentlemen ? " exclaimed De
Launay, turning toward his officers ; " did I not tell you
that we should be thought capable of such cowardice ?"

Then, turning to Billot :

** And you — from whom do you come ? "

" I come on behalf of the people," proudly replied Billot.

TAKING THE BASTILB. 173

** 'Tis well," said De Lannay, smiling ; **but you have
some other recommendation, I suppose, for with that
which you set forth, you would not have been allowed to
pass the first line of my sentries."

'*' Yes — I have a safe- conduct from Monsieur de Fles-
selles, your friend."

** Flesselles ! You say that he is my friend," rejoined
De Launay, looking intently at Billot, as if he would have
read the inmost recesses of his heart. ** From whom do
you know that Monsieur de Flesselles is my friend ! "

**Why, I supposed him to be so."

'* Supposed ? — oh, that is all ! 'Tis well. Let us see
your safe-conduct."

Billot presented the paper to him.

De Launay read it once, then a second time, and turned
and twisted it about to discover whether it did not con-
tain some postscript between its pages ; held it up to the
light, to see whether there were not some lines written
between the lines of the missive.

*' And this is all he has to say to me ? '*

*' All."

** You are sure ?"

*' Perfectly sure."

*' Nothing verbal?"

''Nothing."

*' 'Tis very strange ! " exclaimed De Launay, darting
through one of the loopholes a glance at the crowd
assembled in the square before the Bastile.

" But what would you have had him send to tell you ?*'
said Billot.

De Launay made an impatient gesture.

" Oh, nothing, nothing ! Come, now, tell me what you
want ; but speak quickly, for I am pressed for time."

" Well, then, what I want is, that you should surrendec
the Btistile to us."

"What said you ?" cried De Launay, quickly turning
round as if ho thought he had misunderstood the farmer's
meaning. ** You say "

" I say that I have come in the name of the people to
demand that you surrender the Bastile."

De Launay shrugged up his shoulders.

" l^ho people are, in truth, very strange animals," said ho.

*' Hey ! " cried Billot.

174 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"And what do they want to do with the Bastile ?"

*' They want to demolish it."

** And what the devil has the Bastile to do with the
people ? Was ever a man of the people put into the Bas-
tile ? The people, on the contrary, ought to bless every
stone of which the Bastile is formed. Who are they who
are put into the Bastile ? Philosophers, men of science,
aristocrats, ministers, princes — that is to say, enemies of
the people."

" Well, that proves that the people are not egotists,"
retorted Billot.

" My friend," said De Launay, with a shade of com-
miseration in his tone, " it is easy to perceive that yea are
not a soldier."

" You are quite right. I am a farmer.

"■ That you do not inhabit Paris."

" In fact, I am from the country."

*' That you do not thoroughly know what the Bas-
tile is."

" That is true. I only know what I have seen of it —
that is to say, the exterior walls."

*' Well, then, come along with me, and I will show you
what the Bastile is."

" Ho ! ho ! " muttered Billot to himself, " he is going
to lead me over some villainous trap-door, which will sud-
denlv open under my feet, and then, good night. Father
Billot."

But the intrepid farmer did not even blink, and showed
himself ready to follow the governor of the Bastile.

*'In the first place," said T)e Launay, "you must know
that I have powder enough in my cellars to blow up, not
only the Bastile itself, but with it at least half of the
Faubourg St. Antoinc."

" I know that," tranquilly replied Billot.

"Very well; but now look at those four pieces of
artillery."

" I see them."

" They enfilade the whole of this gallery, as you can also
see ; and this gallery is defended, first by a guard-house ;
secondly, by two ditches, which only can be crossed with
the assistance of two drawbridges ; and lastly, by a grated
iron gate."

" Oh ! 1 do not say that the Bastile is badly defended/'

<(

TAKING THE BASTILE. 175

calmly observed Billot ; " all that I say is, that it will be
well attacked."

" Let us go on," said De Launay.

Billot gave an assenting nod.

" Here is a postern which opens on the ditches/' said the
governor , " look at the thickness of the walls."

*' Somewhere about forty feet."

'' Yes, forty at the bottom and fifteen at the top. You
see that although the people may have good nails, they
would break them against the stones."

* I did not say/' rejoined Billot, " that the people would
demolish the Bastile before taking it. What I said was,
that they would demolish it after having taken it."

**Let us go upstairs/' said De Launay. Let us go up."

They went up some thirty steps.

The governor stopped.

" See," said he, " here is another embrasure, which opens
on the passage by which you wish to enter ; this is only
defended by a rampart gun ; but it has already acquired a
certain reputation. You know the song :

" ' Oh, my tender Musette —
Musette, my only love.' "

" Certainly," said Billot ; " I do know it ; but I do not
think that this is the time to sing it."

" Wait a moment. Well, Marshal Saxe called this small
cannon his Musette, because it sung correctly the air he
best liked. That is a historical detail."

*' Oh {"ejaculated Billot.

*' Let us go up higher "^ — and they continued to climb up
the stairs.

They soon reached a platform on the tower called La
Compte.

*' Ah ! ah I" ejaculated Billot.
, *' What is it ?" inquired De Launay,
( *' You have not had the cannon dismounted."
, ** 1 have had them drawn in — that's all."

** You know that I shall tell the people that cannon are
still here."

"Tell them so."

" You will not have them dismounted, then ? "
I *'No."

"Decidedly?

»

176 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" The king's caniiou are here by the king's order, sir ;
they can only be dismounted by an order from the king."

'* Monsieur de Luunay," said Billot, feeling tlie impor-
tance of the moment, and raising his mind to the full
height of it, with dignified eloquence, " Monsieur de
Launay, the real king, whom I counsel you to obey, ia
yonder."

And he showed to the governor the gray crowd, some of
whom were still covered with blood from the combat of the
preceding evening, and whose undulating movements before
the ditches made their arms gleam in the sunshine.

" Sir," said De Launay, in his turn, throwing his head
back with a haughty air, "you may perhaps acknowledge
two kings, but I, the governor of the Bastile, I know but
one, and he is Louis, the sixteenth of that name, who has
affixed his name to a commission by virtue of which I com-
mand here both men and things."

"You are not then a citizen?" cried Billot, iu anger.

"I am a French gentleman," said the governor. *

" Ah ! that is true — you are a soldier, and you speak as
a soldier."

"Yon have said the w^ord, sir," replied De Launay,
bowing. " I am a soldier, and I execute the orders I re-

ceive."

"And I, sir," said Billot, "lam a citizen, and my duty
as a citizen being in opposition with your orders as a
soldier, one of us two will die — whether it be the one who
obeys his orders, or the one who fulfils his duty."

" It is probable, sir,"

" Then you are determined to fire upon the people ?"

" By no means — so long as they do not fire upon me. I
have pledged my word to the envoys of Monsieur de Fles-
selles. You see that the guns have been drawn in, but at
the first shot from the square upon my castle "

"Well, at the first shot?"

"I will run to one of these guns — this one, for instance
—I will myself wheel it to the embrasure, I will point it
■with my own hands, and I will fire it with the match yoa
Bee standing here."

" You ? "

"Yes, I."

" Oh ! if I believed that," said Billot, " before allowing
yon to commit such a crime "

TAKING THE BASTILE. 177

" I have told yon that I am a soldier, sir, and that I
know nothing but my orders."

*' Well, then, look ! " said Billot, drawing De Launay
toward an embrasure, and pointing out to him alternately
two different points, the Faubourg St. Antoine and the
boulevard ; "yonder are those from whom in future you
will receive your orders."

And he showed De Launay two dark, dense, and howl-
ing masses, who, compelled to take the form of the boule-
vards, undulated like an immense serpent, of which the
head and the body could be seen, but the last rings of
which were lost to sight, from the unevenness of the
ground on which it crawled.

And all that could be seen of the gigantic reptile was
refulgent with luminous scales.

It was the double troop, to which Billot had given ren-
dezvous on the square of the Bastile — the one led by
Marat, and the other by Gonchon.

On both sides they advanced, brandishing their arms
and uttering the most terrific cries.

De Launay turned pale at the sight, and raising his cane :

" To your guns ! " cried he.

Then, advancing toward Billot, with a threatening
gesture :

"And you, wretch!" he exclaimed, "you who have
come here under the jaretext of parleying with me while
the others are advancing to the attack, do you know that
you deserve to die ? "

And he half drew his sword from the cane which con-
cealed it.

Billot saw the movement, and, rapid as the lightning,
seizing De Launay by the collar and the waistband :

" And you," said he, as he raised him from the ground,
" you deserve that I should hurl you over the ramparts, to
break your bones against the sides of the ditch ! But, God
be thanked ! I shall fight you in another manner ! "

At that moment an immense and universal clamor, pro-
ceeding from below, and rushing through the air like the
wild bowlings of the hurricane, reached their ears, and
M. de Losme, the major of the Bastile, appeared on the
platform.

"Sir," cried he, addressing himself to Billot, "sir, be
pleased to show yourself ; all those people yonder believe

178 TAKING THE BASTILE.

that some misfortune has befalleu you, and they are call-
ing for you/'

Anil in fact the name of Billot, which had been spread
among the crowd by Pitou, was heard amid the clamor.

Billot had loosed his hold, and M. de Launay sheathed
his sword.

Then there was a momentary hesitation between these
three men ; cries calling for vengeance, and threatening
shouts were heard.

" Show yourself then, sir," said De Launay ; " not that
these clamors intimidate me, but that it may be known
that I am a man who loyally keeps his word."

Then Billot put his head between the battlements,
making a sign with his hand.

On seeing this, loud shouts of applause rose from the
populace. It was, in a manner, the Revolution rising from
the forehead of the Bastilc in tlie person of this man of
the people, who had been the first to trample on its plat-
form as a conqueror.

'"Tis well, sir," then said De Launay; "all is now
terminated between us ; you have nothing further to do
here. You are called for yonder ; go down."

Billot was sensible of this moderation in a man who had
him completely in his power ; he went down the same stair-
case by which he had ascended the ramparts, the governor
following him.

As to the major, lie had remained there ; the governof
had given him some orders in a whisper.

It was evident that M. de Launay liad but one desire,
and this was that the bearer of the flag of truce should
become his enemy, and that as quickly as possible.

Billot walked across the courtyard without uttering a
word. He saw the artillerymen standing by their guns.
Tbo match was smoking at the end of a lance.

Billot stepped before them.

" My friends," said he, " remember that I came to
request your chief to prevent the spilling of blood, and
that he has refused."

"In the name of the king, sir!" cried De Launay,
Btamping his foot, " leave this place I"

" Beware ! " said Billot ; "for if you order me out in
the name of the king, I shall come in again in the name
of the people."

TAKING THE BASTILE. I79

Then, turning toward the gnard-house, before which
the Swiss were standing :

'* Come, now," said he, " tell me for which side are
you ? "

The Swiss soldiers remained silent.

De Launay pointed with his finger to the iron gate.

Billot wished to essay a last effort.

" Sir," said he, *' in the name of the nation, in the name
of your brothers."

" Of my brothers ? You call my brothers those men
who are howling ' Down with the Bastile ! ' ' Death to its
governor!' They may be your brothers, sir, but most
assuredly they are not mine."

"In the name of humanity, then."

"In the name of humanity which urges you on to come
here with a hundred thousand men to cut the throats of
a hundred unfortunate soldiers shut up in these walls."

" And by surrendering the Bastile you would be doing
precisely that which would save their lives."

" And sacrifice my honor."

Billot said no more to him ; this logic of the soldier
completely overcame him ; but turning to the Swiss and
the Invalides :

'•'Surrender, ray friends," cried he; "it is still time.
In ten minutes it will be too late."

"If you do not instantly withdraw, sir," in his turn
cried De Launay, " on the word of a gentleman, I will
order you to be shot."

Billot paused a moment, crossed his arms over his chest
in token of defiance, exchanged a last threatening glance
with De Launay, and passed through the gate.

CHAPTER XVIL

The crowd was waiting ; scorched by the burning July
sun, they were trembling, mad with excitement. Con-
chon's men had Just joined those of Marat. The Faubourg
St. Antoine had recognized and saluted its brother the
Faabourg St. Marceau.

Gonchon was at the head of his patriots. As to Marat,
he had disappeared.

The aspect of the square was frightful.

180 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Ou Billot's appearance the shouts redoubled.

"' Well ?" said Gouchon, going up to him.

*' Well, this man is a man of courage," said Billot.

" What mean you by saying ' This man is a man of
courage ?'" inquired Gonchon.

" I mean to say that he is obstinate."

** He will not surrender the Bastilo ? "

''No."

** He will obstinately sustain the siege ? "

''Yes."

" And you believe that he will sustain it long ?"

"To the very death."

" Be it so ! Death he shall have ! "

" But what numbers of men we are about to expose
to death ! " exclaimed Billot, doubting assuredly that God
had given him the right which generals arrogate to them-
selves— as do kings and emperors — men who have received
commissions to shed blood.

" Pooh I " said Gonchon, "there are too many in this
world, since there is not bread enough for half the popula-
tion. Is it not so, friends ? "

"Yes, yes!" cried the crowd, with a sublime self-ab-
negation.

" But the ditch I " observed Billot, inquiringly

" It is only necessary that it 'should be filled up at one
particular spot," replied Gonchon, " and I have calculated
that wdth half of the bodies we have here we could fill it
up completely ; is it not so, friends ?"

"Yes, yes!" repeated the crowd, with no less enthu-
siasm than before.

" AVell, then, belt so," said Billot, though comi)letely
overcome.

At that moment De Launay appeared upon the terrace
followed by Major de Losme and two or three officers.

" Begin ! " cried Gonchon to the governor.

The latter turned his back without replying.

Gonchon, who would perhaps have endured a threat,
could not endure disdain ; he quickly raised his carbine
to his shoulder, and a man in the governor's suite fell to
the ground.

A hundred shots, a thousand musket shots, were fired at
the same moment, as if they had only waited for the signal,
and marbled with wliite the gray towers of the Baatile.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 181

A silence of some seconds succeeded this discharge, as
if the crowd itself had been alarmed at that which it liad
done.

Then a flush of fire, lost in a cloud of smoke, crowned
the summit of a tower ; a detonation resounded ; cries of
pain were heard issuing from the closely pressed crowd ;
the first cannon shot hud been fired from the Bastile ; the
first blood had been spilled ; the battle had commenced.

What the crowd experienced, which just before had
been so threatening, very much resembled terror. That
Bastile, defending itself by this sole act, appeared in all
its formidable impregnability. The people had doubtless
hoped that in those days, when so many concessions had
been made to them, the surrender of the Bastile would be
accomplished without effusion of blood.

The people were mistaken. The cannon shot which had
been fired upon them gave them the measure of the
Titanic work which they had undertaken.

A volley of musketry, well directed, and coming from
the platform of the Bastile, followed closely on the cannon
shot.

Then all was again silent for awhile, a silence which
was interrupted only by a few cries, a few groans, a few
complainings uttered here and there.

A shuddering, anxious movement could then be per-
ceived among the crowd ; it was the people who were
picking up their killed and wounded.

But the people thought not of flying, or if they did
think of it they were ashamed of the feeling when they
considered their great numbers.

In fact, the boulevards, the Rue St. Antoine, the Fau-
bourg St. Antoine, formed but one vast human sea ; every
wave had a head, every head two flashing eyes, a threaten-
ing mouth.

In an instant all the windows of the neighborhood were
filled with sharpshooters, even those which were out of
gunshot.

Whenever a Swiss soldier or an Invalide appeared upon
the terraces or in one of the embrasures, a hundred
muskets were at once aimed at him, and a shower of balls
splintered the corners of the stones behind which the
soldier was slieltered.

But they soon got tired of firing at insensible walls. It

182 TAKING THE BASTILE.

was against Imman flesh that their balls were directed. It
was blood tiuit they wished to see spout forth, wherever
the balls struck, and not dust.

Numerous opinions were emitted from amid the crowd.
A circle would then be formed around tlie orator, and
when the people thought the proposal was devoid of sense,
they at once left him.

A blacksmith proposed to form a catapult, upon the
model of the ancient Roman machines and with it to
make a breach in the walls of the Bastile.

A brewer, who commanded the Faubourg St. Antoine,
and whose name has since acquired a fatal celebrity pro-
posed to set fire to the fortress, by throwing into it a
quantity of oil, which had been seized the night before,
and which they were to ignite with phosphorus.

The firemen proposed to inundate with their fire-engines
the priming of the cannon and the matches of the artil-
lerymen, without reflecting that the most powerful of
their engines could not throw water even to two thirds
the height of the walls of the Bastile.

Billot listened to all these mad-brained proposals one
after the other. On hearing the last, he seized a hatchet
from the hands of a carpenter, and advancing amid a
storm of bullets, which struck down all around him num-
bers of men, huddled together as thickly as ears of corn
in a field, he reached a small guard-house near to the
first drawbridge, and although the grape-shot was whiz-
zing and cracking against the roof, he ascended it, and by
his powerful and well-directed blows, succeeded in break-
ing the chains, and the drawbridge fell with a tremen-
dous crash.

During the quarter of an hour which this seemingly
insensate enterprise had occupied, the crowd was palpitat-
ing with excitement. At every report they expected to
see the daring workman fall from the roof. The people
forgot the danger to which they were exposed, and thought
only of the danger which this brave man was incurring.
When the bridge fell they uttered a loud, joyful cry and
rushed into the first courtyard.

Tlie movement was so rapid, so impetuous, so irresisti-
ble, that the garrison did not even attempt to prevent it.
Shouts of frantic joy announced this first advantage to
M. de Launay.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 183

No one even observed that a man liad been crushed to
atoms beneath the mass of woodwork. Then the four
pieces of artillery which the governor had shown to Billot
were simultaneously discharged with a frightful explosion
and swept the first courtyard of the fortress.

The iron hurricane traced through the crowd a long
furrow of blood. Teu men shot dead, fifteen or twenty
wounded, were the consequences of this discharge.

Billot slid down from the roof of the guard-house to the
ground, on reaching which he found Pitou, who had come
there he knew not how. Pitou's eyes were quick, as are
those of all poachers. He had seen the artillerymen pre-
paring to put their matches to the touchholes of their
guns, and seizing Billot by the skirts of his jacket jerked
him violently toward him, and thus they were both pro-
tected by the angle of a wall from the effects of their
first discharge.

From that moment the affair became really serious.
The tumult was actually frightful — the combat a mortal
one. Ten thousand muskets were at once fired round the
Bastile, more dangerous in their effect to the besiegers
than to the besieged.

At length a cannon served by the French Guards had
mixed its thunder with the musketry.

The noise was frightful, but the crowd appeared to be
more and more intoxicated by it ; and this noise began to
terrify even the besieged, who, calculating their own small
number, felt they could never equal the noise which was
then deafening tliem.

The officers of the Bastile felt instinctively that their
soldiers were becoming disheartened. They snatched their
muskets from them, and themselves fired at the crowd.

At this moment, and amid the noise of artillery and
musketry, amid the bowlings of the crowd, as soine of them
were rushing to pick up the dead bodies of their compan-
ions to form of them a new incitement — for their gaping
wounds would cry aloud for vengeance against the besieged
— there appeared at the entrance of the first courtyard a
small group of uuarmcd, quiet citizens. They made tijeir
Avay througli the crowd, and advanced, ready to sacrifice
their lives, protected only by a white flag which preceded
them, and which intimated that they were the bearers of
a message to the governor.

184: TAKING THE BASTILE.

It was a depntatiou from tlie Hotel de Ville. The elec-
tors knew tluit hostilities had commenced, and, anxious
to prevent the effusion of blood, had compelled Flesselles
to send new proposals to the governor.

The deputies come, therefore, in the name of the city
to summon M. de Launay to order the firing to cease, and
to guarantee at once the lives of the citizens, his own, and
those of the garrison ; to propose that he should receive
one hundred men of the civic guard into the interior of
the fortress.

This was the rumor, which was spread as the deputies
advanced. Tlie people, terrified at the enterprise they
had undertaken ; the people who saw the dead bodies of
their companions carried out on litters, were quite ready
to support this proposal. Let De Launay accept a half
defeat, and satisfy himself with half a victory.

At their approach, the fire of the second courtyard
ceased. A sign was made to them that they might ap-
proach ; and they accordingly advanced, slipping on the
insanguined pavement, striding over carcasses, and hold-
ing out their hands to the wounded.

Under this protection, the people form themselves into
groups. The dead bodies and the wounded are carried
out of the fortress ; the blood alone remains, marbling
with large purple spots the pavement of the courtyard.

The fire from the fortress had ceased. Billot was leav-
ing it, in order to stop that of the besiegers. At the door
he meets Gonchon — (ironchon, altogether unarmed, expos-
ing himself like one inspired, calm, as if he were invulner-
able.

" Well," inquired he of Billot, *' what has become of
the deputation ? "

'*' It has gone into the fortress," replied Billot ; ''order
our men to cease firing."

''It will be useless," said Gonchon; "they will not
consent."

" That matters not." rejoined Billot ; " it is our duty to
make the attempt. Let us respect the usages of war, since
we have become soldiers."

" Be it so," said Gonchon.

Then, addressing himself to two nion in the crowd, who
appeared to command under him the whole of the as-
sembled mass ;

TAKING THE BASTILE. 185

'* Go, Elie — go, Hullin," said he, '' and see that not a
musket shot be fired."

The two aides-de-camp, rushed out, and obeying the
orders of their chief, pressed through the crowded masses,
and soon the firing of musketry diminished, and then
ceased altogether.

A momentary quiet was established. Advantage was
taken of it to attend to the wounded, the number of whom
had already amounted to thirty-five or forty.

During this respite, the prison clock struck two. The
attack had begun at noon, the combat had already lasted
two hours.

Billot had returned to his post, and it was Gonchon in
his turn who followed him.

His eyes were turned anxiously toward the gate. His
impatience was visible.

*' What is the matter witli you ?" inquired Billot.

** The matter is," replied Gonchon, *' that if the Bastile
is not taken within two hours from this time, all is lost."

" And why so ? "

** Because the court will be informed of the work we are
about, and will despatch the Swiss to us, under Bezenval,
and Lambesq's dragoons ; so that we shall then be caught
between three fires."

Billott was compelled to acknowledge that there Avas
some truth in what Gonchon was saying.

At length the deputies reappeared. From their counte-
nances it was evident they had obtained no concession.

" Well," cried Gonchon, whose eyes sparkled with de-
light, '* what did I tell you ? Things that are predicted
must happen. The accursed fortress is condemned!"

Then, without waiting even to put a question to the
deputation, he sprung out of the first courtyard, crying :

*' To arms, my children ! to arms ! The commandant
refuses."

Aiul, in fact, the governor had scarcely read the letter
froin Flesselles, when his countenance brightened ; aiul,
instead of acceding to the proposals which had been made
to him, he exclaimed :

" Gentlemen Parisians, you have insisted on a battle ;
and now it is too late to speak of treating,"

The bearers of the flag of truce persisted in urging their
fiuit ; tliey represented to De Launay all the evils which

186 TAKING THE BASTILE.

his defending the castle might entail ; but he wonld not
listen to them ; and he concluded by saying to the de2)U ■
tation what he had said two hours before to Billot :

^' Leave the fortress, or I will have you shot."

And the bearers of the flag of truce were compelled to
leave the governor.

On this occasion it was De Launay who resumed the
offensive. He appeared burning with impatience.

Before the deputies had reached the gate of the court-
yard, the Musette of Marshal Saxe played a tune, and
three persons fell, one of them dead, two others wounded.

One of the wounded was a French Guard, the other one
of the deputies.

On seeing a man whose office should have rendered him
sacred, carried forth covered with blood, the crowd be-
came more enraged than ever.

Gonchon's two aides-de-camp had returned to their places
at his side ; but each of them had had time to go home to
change his dress.

It is true that one of them lived near the arsenal, the
other in the Rue de Charonne.

Hullin, who had in the first place been a watchmaker
at Geneva, then chasseu}' to the Marquis do Conflans, re-
turned in his brilliant livery, which gave him the appear-
ance of a Hungarian officer.

Elie, formerly an officer in the queen's regiment, had
put on his uniform, which inspired the people with greater
confidence, as it made them believe that the army was for
them and with them.

The firing recommenced with greater fury than ever.
And at that moment, the major of the Bastile, M. de
Losme, approached the governor.

He was a brave and faithful soldier ; but there were
some remains of the citizen in him ; and he saw with much
regret what had taken place, and, above all, what was
likely to ensue.

" Sir," said he to De Launay, " we have no provisions,
and of this you must be aware."

"I know it," replied the governor.

" You also know that we liave no orders."

"I beg your pardon. Monsieur de Losme; my orders
are to keep the gates of the Bastile closed, and it is for
that purpose that the keys are intrusted to me."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 187

" Sir, the keys are used as well to open the gates as to
close them. Beware that you do not cause the massacre
of the whole of the garrison, without saving the castle, two
triumphs on the same day. Look at those men whom we
are killing ; they appear to spring up from beneath the
pavement. This morning there were at first only five
hundred of them ; three hours ago there were ten thou-
sand. They are more than sixty thousand now ; to-morrow
they will be a hundred thousand. When our guns shall
be silenced, and it must at last end in that, they will be
strong enough to take the Bastile with their hands."

"You speak not like a soldier, Monsieur de Losmc."

''I speak like a Frenchman, sir. I say, that his ma-
jesty, not having given us any orders — I say that the pro-
vost of the merchants having made us a proposal which
was a very acceptable one, which was that of admitting a
hundred men of the civic guard into the castle, you might,
to avoid the evils which I foresee, accede to the proposal
of Monsieur de Flesselles."

"In your opinion, then. Monsieur de Losme, the power
which represents the city of Paris is a power which we
ought to obey ? "

" In the absence of the direct authority of his majesty,
yes, sir, it is my opiuion."

" Well, then," said De Launay, leading the major into
a corner of the courtyard, " read that. Monsieur de
Losme."

And he handed him a small square piece of paper.

The major read it.

" Hold firm ! I amuse the Parisians with cockades and
promises. Before the close of tlie day, ]\Ionsieur de Bezen-
val will send you a reinforcement. De Flesselles."

" How, then, did this note reach you, sir ?" inquired
the major.

" In the letter which the gentlemen of the deputation
brought me. They thought that they were delivering to
me a request to surrender the Bastile, while they were
delivering to ine an order to defend it."

The major bowed his head.

" Go to your post. Monsieur de Losme, and do not leave
it until I send for you."

M. de Losme obeyed.

188 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Do Launay very quietly refolded the letter, and put it
iuLo his pocket. Ilo then reLunied to Inn artillery mou,
and recommended them to fire low, and to take good aim.

The artillerymen obeyed, as M de Losme had obeyed.

But the fate of tlie fortress was predestined. Nohamaa
power could delay its fulfilment.

To every cannon shot the people replied by shouting :

" We will have the Bastile I "

And while mouths were shouting, arms were vigorously
acting.

Among the voices which shouted most energetically,
among the arms which were acting the most efficaciously,
were the voices and arms of Pitou and Billot.

Only each of them proceeded according to his different
nature.

Billot, courageous and confident, as in the bull-dog, had
from the first rushed forward, defying ball and grape-shot.

Pitou, prudent and circumspect, like the fox, Pitou, en-
dowed to a supreme degree with the instinct of self-pres-
ervation, made use of all his faculties to watch the danger
and avoid it.

His eyes knew the embrasures which sent forth the
most deadly fire ; they distinguished the almost impercept-
ible movement of the brazen month which was about to be
fired. He had at last studied the thing so minutely, that
be could divine the precise moment when the battery guu
was about to be fired across the drawbridge.

Then his eyes having performed their office, it was the
turn of his limbs to work for their proprietor.

Ills sliouklers were drawn in, his cliest contracted, his
whole body did not seem to offer a larger surface than a
plank when seen edgeways.

In these movements of Pitou, of the chubby Pitou — for
Pitou was thin only in the legs — there remained only a
geometrical line, which had neither breadth nor thickness.

Tie had selected for his post a corner in the passage
from the first drawbridge to Ihe second, a sort of vertical
parapet formed by jutting stones, llis head w;is protected
by one of these stones, his body l>y anotlior, his knees by a
third, and Pitou congratulated himself that nature and
the art of fortification were thus so agreeably combined
that a stone was given him to protect each of the parts
where a wound might have proved mortal.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 189

From his corner, in which he was covei*ed like a hare in
its form, he now and then fired a sliot ; but merely for
form sake, for he had before him only walls and pieces of
timber ; but this evidently pleased Billot, who from time
to time called out :

" Fire, you lazy fellow, fire ! "

And he, in his turn, would cry to Billot, but in order to
calm his exuberant ardor instead of exciting it :

'' But do not expose yourself so much. Father Billot,"

Or else :

'' Take care of yourself. Monsieur Billot ; there is a
cannon jwinted at you. There, I have just heard them
cocking tlie Musette ! "

And scarcely had Pi ton uttered these words, so full of
foresight, than the cannon belched forth its grape-shot,
sweeping the passage between the bridges.

Notwithstanding all these injunctions. Billot performed
prodigies of strength and activity, but of jierfect inutility.
Not being able to shed his blood — and assuredly it was
not his fault — he shed large and abundant drops of per-
spiration.

Ten times did Pitou seize him by the skirts of his jacket,
and pulled him to the ground in spite of his great strength,
at a moment when a discharge would have assuredly swept
him off.

But each time Billot jumped up again, not only like
Antaeus, with renewed strength, but with some new idea.

At one time this idea consisted in venturing upon the
platform of the bridge to hack at the beams which the
chains upheld, as he had before done.

Then Pitou uttered the fearful howls to restrain the
farmer, and finding that his howling was of no avail, he
would rush from his place of safety to him, crying :

'* Monsieur Billot, my dear Monsieur Billot, why,
Madame Billot will be a widow, if you go on in tlds
way."

And the Swiss soldiers could be seen placing their mus-
kets obliquely through the embrasure of the Musette, to aim
at the audacious man who was endeavoring to reduce their
bridge to chips.

At another time he called upon his men to bring up a
cannon to destroy tlie head-work of tlic bridge ; but tlieu
the Musette Avas fired, the gunners retreated, and Billot

190 TAKING THE BASTILE.

romiiined alone to load the gun and fire it, which again
brouglit out Pitou from his retreat.

"Monsieur Billot," cried he, "Monsieur Billot, in the
name of Mademoiselle Catherine, I conjure you, reflect a
moment ! Should you get yourself killed. Mademoiselle
Catherine will be an orphan."

And Billot yielded to this reason, which appeared to
have much more influence on his mind than the first.

At length the fruitful imagination of the farmer gave
birth to another idea.

He ran toward the square, crying :

" A cart ! bring a cart here ! "

Pitou considered that that which was good would be
rendered excellent by being doubled. lie followed Billot,
vociferating :

"Two carts! two carts!" and immediately ten carts
were brought.

" Some straw and some dry hay !" cried Billot.

" Some straw and some dry hay I " reiterated Pitou.

And almost instantly two hundred men came forward,
each carrying a truss of straw or hay.

They were obliged to call that they had ten times more
than tiiey wanted. In an hour there was a heap of forage
which would have equaled the height of the Bastile.

Billot placed himself between the shafts of a cart loaded
with straw, and instead of dragging it he pushed it on
before him.

Pitou did the same without knowing what it could be
for, but thinking he could not do better than to imitate
the farmer.

Elie and Ilullin divined Billot's intention ; they each
seized a cart and pushed it before them into the court-
yard.

They had scarcely entered when they were assailed by a
discharge of grape-shot; they heard the balls strike with
a whizzing sound among the straw or hay, or against the
woodwork of tiie carts. But neither of tlie assailants
received a wound.

As soon as this discharge was over, two or three hun-
dred men with muskets iushcd on beliind those who were
pushing forward the carts, and, sheltered by these moving
ramparts, tiiey lodged themselves beneath the apron of the
bridge itself.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 191

Then Billot drew from his pocket a flint, a steel, and
some tinder, formed a match by rubbing gunpowder on
paper, and set fire to it.

The powder ignited the paper, and the paper ignited the
straw and hay.

Each formed a torch for himself, and the four carts Avere
simultaneously set fire to.

The flames reached the apron, caught the timbers with
its acerated teeth,and ran along the woodwork of the bridge.

A shout of joy then, uttered from the courtyard, was
taken up by the crowd in the Square St. Antoine and
reiterated with deafening clamor. They saw the smoke
rising above the walls, and they hence imagined that
something fatal to the besiegers was occurring.

In fact, the reddened chains detached themselves from
the beams. The bridge fell, half broken and destroyed by
fire, smoking and cracking. Tlie firemen rushed forward
with their engines, and soon extinguished the flames upon
the bridge.

The governor ordered the Invalides to fire upon the
people, but they refused.

The Swiss alone obeyed, but they were not artillerymen ;
they were therefore obliged to abandon the guns.

The French Guards, on the contrary, seeing that the
enemy's fire was discontinued, brouglit up their gun and
planted it before the gate ; tlicir third shot shivered it to
pieces.

The governor had gone up to the phitform of the castle
to see whether the promised reinforcements were approach-
ing, when he found himself suddenly enveloped in smoke.
It was then that he precipitately descended and ordered
the artillerymen to fire.

The refusal of tlie Invalides exasperated him. The
breaking down of the gate made him at once comprehend
that all was lost.

M. de Launay knew that he was hated. He felt that
there was no salvation for him. During the whole time
that the combat had lasted, he had matured the idea of
burying himself beneath the ruins of the Bastile.

At the moment he felt assured that all further defense
was hopeless, he snatched a match from the hand of one of
the artillerymen, and sprung toward the cellar which
served as a j^owder magazine.

192 TAKING THE BASTILE.

** The gunpowder ! tlie gunpowder ! " cried twenty
terrified voices, '' tlie powder, the powder ! "

They saw the burning match in the governors hand.
They guessed his purpose. Two soldiers rushed forward
and crossed tlieir bayonets before his breast just at the
moment when he had opened the door.

** You may kill me," said De Launay, " but you cannot
kill me quick enough to ju'event me letting this match fall
among the powdei-casks ; and then besieged and besiegers
will all be blown to atoms."

The two soldiers stopped. Their bayonets remained
crossed and pointed at De Launay's breast, butDe Launay
was still their commander, for all felt that he had the lives
of the whole of them in his power. His actions had nailed
every one to the spot on Avliich he stood. The assailants
perceived that something extraordinary was happening.
They looked anxiously into the courtyard and saw the
governor threatened and threatening in his turn.

"Hear me," cried De Launay to the besiegers; "as
surely as I hold this match in my hand, with which I could
exterminate yon all, should any one of you make a single
step to enter this courtyard, so surely will I set fire to the
powder ! "

Those who beard these words imagined that they already
felt the ground trembling beneath their feet.

'* What is your wish? wdiat do you demand ?" cried
several voices, with an accent of terror.

" I wish for a capitulation," replied De Launay, *' an
honorable capitulation."

The assailants pay but little attention to what the gov-
ernor says, they cannot credit such an act of despair ; they
wish to enter the courtyard. Billot is at their head.
Suddenly Billot trembles and turns pale ; lie had just
remembered Dr. Gilbert.

As long as Billot had thought only of himself, it was a
matter of little importance to him whether the Bastile was
blown up, and he blown up with it, but Ciilbert's life must
be saved at any cost.

" Stop ! " exclaimed Billot, throwing himself before
Elic and llullin ; "stop in the name of the prisoners !"

And these nnm, wlio feared not to encounter death theui-
eelves, retreated, pale and trembling, in their turn.

'MVhat do you demand?" they cried, renewing the

TAKING THE BASTILE. 193

qnestion they had previously put to the governor by his
own men.

*' I demand that you should all withdraw," replied De
Launay, fiercely. *' I will not accept any proposal so long
as there remains a single stranger in the Bastile."

*' But," said Billot, " will you not take advantage of
our absence to place yourself again in a state of de-
fense ? "

*' If the capitulation is refused, you shall find everything
in the state it now is, you at that gate, I where I am now
standing."

*' You pledge your word for that ?"

" On the honor of a gentleman."

Some of them shook their heads.

*' On the honor of a gentleman," reiterated De Launay.
'' Is there any one here who can still doubt, when a gentle-
man has pledged his honor ? "

" No, no ! no one ! " repeated five hundred voices.

" Let paper, pen, and ink be brought here to me.'*

The orders of the governor were instantly obeyed.

" 'Tis well," said De Launay.

Then turning toward the assailants :

"And now, you must retire."

Billot, HuUin, and Elie set the example, and were tho
first to withdraw.

All the others followed them.

De Launay placed the match by his side, and began
writing the capitulation on his knee.

The Invalides and the Swiss soldiers, who felt that their
existence depended on the result, gazed at him while he
was writing with a sort of respectful terror.

De Launay looked round before allowing his pen to touch
the paper. He saw that the courtyard was free of all
intruders.

In an instant the people outside were informed of all
that had happened witliin the fortress.

As M. de Losme had said, the population seemed to
spring up from beneath the pavement. One hundred
thousand men surrounded the Bastile.

They were no longer merely laborers and artisans, but
citizens of every class had joined them. They wore not
merely men in tlio prime of life, but children and old meu
had rushed forward to tho fight.

9 — Dumas — A^or,. IX.

194: TAKING THE BASTILE.

And all of them had arms of some description ; all of
them shouted veliemeiitly.

Here and there among the groups was to be seen a
woman in despair, with hair disheveled, wringing her
hands and uttering maledictions against the granite giant.

She is some mother whose son the Bastile has just anni-
hilated, some daughter whose father the Bastile has just
leveled with the ground, some wife whose husband the
Bastile has just exterminated.

But during some moments no sounds had issued from
the Bastile, no flames, no smoke. The Bastile had be-
come as silent as the tomb.

It would have been useless to have endeavored to count
the spots made by the balls which had marbled its surface.
Every one had wished to fire a shot at the stone monster,
the visible symbol of tyranny.

Therefore, when it was rumored in the crowd that the
Bastile was about to capitulate, that its governor had
promised to surrender, they could scarcely credit the
report.

Amid this general doubt, as they did not yet dare to
congratulate themselves, as they were silently awaiting
the result, they saw a letter pushed forth through a loop-
hole on the point of a sword.

Only between this letter and the besiegers there Avas the
ditch of the Bastile, wide, deep, and full of water.

Billot calls for a plank ; three are brought and are
pushed across the ditch, but being too short, did not reach
the opposite side. A fourth is brought, which lodges on
either edge of the ditch.

Billot had them lashed together as he best could, and
then ventured unhesitatingly upon the trembling bridge.

The whole crowd remained breathlessly silent ; all eyes
are fixed uj^on the man who appears suspended above the
ditch, whose stagnant waters resemble those of the river
Cocytus.

Pitou tremblingly seated himself on the edge of the
elope, and hid his head between his knees.

Ilis heart failed him, and he wept.

"When Billot had got about t^vo-thirds of the way over
the plank, it twisted beneath his feet. Billot extends his
arms, falls, and disappears in the ditch.

Pitou utters a fearful groan and throws himself into the

TAKING THE BASTILE. I95

ditch, like a Newfoaadland dog anxious to save his
master.

A mau then approached the plank from which Billot
had just before been precipitated.

Without hesitation he walked across the temporary
bridge. This man is Stanislaus Maillard, the usher of
the Chatelet.

When he had reached the spot below which Pitou and
Billot were struggling in the muddy ditch, he, for a mo-
ment, cast a glance upon them, and seeing that there was
no doubt they would regain the shore in safety, he con-
tinued to walk on.

Half a minute afterward he had reached the opposite
side of the ditch, and had taken the letter which was held
out to him on the point of a sword.

Then, with the same tranquillity, the same firmness of
step, he recrossed the ditch.

But at the moment when the crowd was pressing round
him to hear the letter read, a storm of musket balls rained
down upon them from the battlements, and a frightful
detonation was heard.

One only cry, but one of those cries which announce
the vengeance of a whole people, issues from every mouth.

" Trust then in tyrants ! " exclaimed Gonchon.

And then, without thinking any more of the capitula-
tion, without thinking any more of the powder magazine,
without thinking of themselves or of the prisoners, with-
out desiring, without demanding anything but vengeance,
the people rushed into the courtyard, no longer by
hundreds of men, but by thousands.

That which prevents the crowd from entering is no
longer the musketry, but the gates, which are too narrow
to admit them.

On hearing the detonation we have spoken of, the two
soldiers who were still watching M. de Launay threw
themselves upon him, a third snatched upon the match
and extinguished it by placing his heel upon it.

De Launay drew the sword, which was concealed in his
cane, and would have turned it against his own breast,
but the soldiers seized it and snapped it in two.

lie then telt that all he could do was to resign himself
to the result ; he tlierefore tranquilly awaited it.

The people rush forward j the garrison open their arms

196 TAKING THE BASTILE.

to them ; and the Bastile is taken by assault — by main
force, without a capitulation.

The reason for this was, that for more than a hundred
years the royal fortress had not merely imprisoned inert
matter within its walls — it had imprisoned thought also.
Thought had thrown down the walls of the Bastile, and
the people entered by the breach.

As to the discharge of musketry, which had taken place
amid the general silence, during the suspension of hostili-
ties ; as to this unforeseen aggression, as impolitic as it
was murderous, it was never known who had ordered it,
who had excited it, how it was accomplished.

There are moments when the destiny of a whole nation
is being weighed in the scales of Fate. One of them
weighs down the other. Every one already thinks he has
attained the proposed end. Suddenly some invisil)le hand
lets fall into the other scale the blade of a poniard or a
pistol-ball.

Then all changes, and one only cry is heard, " Woe to
the vanquished ! "

CHAPTER XVIII.

While the people were thus rushing into the fortress,
howling at once with Joy and rage, two men were strug-
gling in the muddy waters of the ditch.

These men were Pitou and Billot.

Pitou was supporting Billot. No shot had struck him ;
he had not been wounded in any way ; but his fall had
somewhat confused the worthy farmer.

Ropes were thrown to them — poles were held out to
them.

Pitou caught hold of a pole, Billot a rope.

Five minutes afterward, they were carried in triumph
by the people, and eagerly embraced, notwithstanding
their muddy state.

One man gives Billot a glass of brandy, another stuffs
Pitou's mouth full of sausages, and gives him wine to wash
them down.

A third rubs them down with straw, and wishes to place
them in tlio sun to dry their clothes.

Suddenly, an idea, or, rather, a recollection, shot

TAKING THE BASTILE. 197

through the mind of Billot ; he tears himself aAvay from
their kind cares and rushes into the Bastile.

" To the prisoners !" cried he — " to the prisoners ! "

" Yes, to the prisoners ! " cried Pitou, in his turn,
bounding after the farmer.

The crowd, which until then had only thought of the
executioners, shuddered when thinking of their victims.

They with one shout repeated : " Yes, yes, yes — to the
prisoners ! "

And a new flood of assailants rush through the barriers,
seeming to widen the sides of the fortress by their num-
bers, and bearing liberty with them to the captives.

A dreadful spectacle then offered itself to the eyes of
Billot and Pitou. The excited, enraged, maddened throng
had precipitated themselves into the courtyard. The first
soldier they had met was at once hacked to pieces.

Gonchon had quietly looked on. Doubtless he had
thought that the anger of the people, like the currents of
great rivers, does more harm when any impediment is
thrown in its way to arrest it, than if allowed to tran-
quilly flow on.

Elie and Hullin, on the contrary, had thrown themselves
before the infuriated sacrifices ; they prayed, they sup-
plicated, uttering the sublime lie that they had promised
life and safety to the whole garrison.

The ai'rival of Billot and Pitou was a reinforcement to
them.

Billot, whom they were avenging, Billot was living,
Billot was not even wounded. The plunk had turned
under his feet, and that was all ; he had taken a mud-
bath, and nothing more.

It was, above all, against the Swiss that the people were
particularly enraged, but the Swiss were nowhere to be
found. They had had time to put on gray frocks, and
they were taken for either servants or for prisoners.

The mob hurled large stones at the dial of the clock,
and destroyed the figures of the two captives which sup-
ported it. They rushed to the ramparts to mutilate the
cannon which had vomited forth death upon them. They
even wreaked their vengeance on the stone walls, tearing
their hands in endeavoring to displace them. AVhen the
first of tlie conquerors was seen upon the platform, all
those who had remained without the fortress, that is to

198 TAKING THE BASTILE.

say, a hundred thousand men, shout with clamorous joy j

" The Bastile is taken ! "

This cry resounded through Paris, and spread itself
over the whole of France as if borne with the rapidity of
of eagles' wings.

On hearing this cry all hearts were softened, all eyes shed
tears, all arms were extended ; there were no longer any
contending parties ; there were no longer any inimical
castes ; all Parisians felt that they were brothers, all men
felt that they were free.

A million of men pressed one another in a mutual em-
brace.

Billot and Pitou had entered the Bastile, following
some and followed by others ; what they wished for was not
to claim their share in the triumph ; it was the liberty of
the prisoners.

When crossing the courtyard of the government house,
they passed near a man in a gray coat who was standing
calmly, his hand resting on a gold-headed cane.

This man was the governor. He was quietly waiting
either that his friends should come to save him, or that
his enemies should come to strike him down.

Billot, on perceiving him, recognized him, uttered
a light exclamation of surprise, and went straight to
him.

De Lannayalso recognized Billot. He crossed his arms
and waited, looking at the farmer with an expression that
implied :

''Let me see; is it vou that will give me the first
blow?"

Billot at once divined the meaning of his look, and
stopped.

" If I speak to him," said he to himself, " I shall cause
him to be recognized, and should he be recognized, his
death is certain."

And yet, how was he to find Dr. Gilbert amid this chaos
of confusion ? How could he drag from the Bastile the
secret which its walls inclosed ?

AM this hesitation, these lieroic scruples, were under-
stood by De La u nay.

" What is it that you wish ?" asked De Launay, in an
nnderfone.

" Nothing," replied Billot, pointing with his finger to

TAKING THE BASTILE. 199

the gate, indicating to him that escape was yet possible ;
''nothing. I shall be able readily to find Doctor G'lU
bert."

" Third Bertaudiere/' replied De Lauuay^ in a gentle
and almost affectionate tone of voice.

But he stirred not from the place on which he stood.

Suddenly a voice from behind Billot pronounced these
words :

" Ah ! there is the governor. ''

This voice was so calm, so hollow, that it appeared not
to be of this world, and yet, each word it had uttered was
a sharp poniard turned against the breast of De Launay.

He who had spoken was Gonchon.

These words, like the first sounds of an alarm-bell, ex-
cited a fearful commotion ; all these men, drunk with re-
vengeful feelings, started on hearing them ; they looked
around with flaming eyes, perceived De Launay, and at
once darted upon and seized him,"

" Save him," said Billot, as he passed near Elie and
Hullin, " or they Avill murder him."

" Assist us to do so," said the two men.

" I am obliged to remain here," replied Billot, " for I
also have some one to save."

In an instant De Launay had been surrounded by a
thousand men, -yvho dragged him filong, lifted him up,
and were bearing him away.

Elie and Hullin bounded after him, crying :

" Stop ! stop ! we promised him that his life should be
saved ! "

This was not true ; bnt the thought of uttering this
magnanimous falsehood had risen to the minds of these
two generous men at the same moment.

In a second, De Launay, followed by Elie and Hullin,
disappeared under the vaulted passage which led from the
Bastile, amid loud voices of "To the Hotel de Ville ! to
the Hotel de Ville ! "

It was a singular spectacle, to see this mournful and
silent monument, which for centuries had been tenanted
only by prisoners, their guards, and a gloomy governor,
now become the prey of the people, who ran through the
courtyards, ascended and descended the staircases, buzz-
ing like a swarm of flies, and filling this granite hive with
noise and movement.

200 TAKING THE BASTILE.

De Ijannay, a living prey, was to some of the victors of
as ijrt'aL value as the dead prey, the ca[)tured Bastile.

Billot, for a moment or two, followed De Lannay with
his eyes, who was cai'ried rather than led, and ai)peared to
soar above the croud.

But, as we have said, he soon disappeared. Billot heaved
a sigh, looked around him, perceived Piton, and rushed
toward a tower, crying :

-' Third Bertaudiere."

"A trembling jailer met him on his way.

''■ Third Bertaudiere," said Billot.

"Tills way, sir," replied the jailer; "but I have not
the keys."

" Where are they ? "

"They took them from me."

" Citizen, lend me your hatchet," said Billot, to one of
the men from the faubourg.

" I give it to you," replied the latter ; "I do not want
it any more, since the Bastile is taken."

Biilot snatched the hatchet, and ran up a staircase, con-
ducted by the jailer.

The jailer stopped before a door.

"Third Bertaudiere ?" said the man, inquiringly.

"Yes."

" This is it."

" The prisoner confined in this room is Doctor Gilbert,
is it not ? "

"I do not know."

" lie was brought here only five or six days ago ?"

" I do not know."

"Well, then," said Billot, "I shall soon know."

And he began chopping at the door with his hatchet.

The door was of oak, but it soon ilew into splinters
beneath the vigorous blows of the robust farmer.

In a few moments he had cut a hole through it, and
could look into the room.

Billot placed his eye at the opening. Through it he
could see the interior of the cell.

In the line of sunshine which penetrated into the
dungeon through its grated window, a man was standing,
his head thrown rather backward, holding in his hand one
of the posts of his bedstead, and in an attitude of de-
fense.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 201

This man had evidently prepared himself to knock down
the first person who should enter his room.

Notwithstanding his long beard, notwithstanding his
pallid countenance, notwithstanding his short-cut hair,
Billot recognized him. It was Dr. Gilbert.

'' Doctor ! doctor ! " cried Billot to him, " is it yon ? "

" Who is it that is calling me ? " inquired the prisoner.

*"Twas I— I, Billot, your friend."

''You, Billot?"

''Yes ! yes ! — he ! he ! — we ! we !" cried the voices of
twenty men, who had run into the passage on hearing the
vigorous blows struck by Billot.

" But who are vou ?"

" "We ? — why, the conquerors of the Bastile. The
Bastile is taken — you are free ! "

"The Bastile is taken — I am free!" exclaimed the
doctor.

And passing both his hands through the opening, he
shook the door so violently that the hinges and the lock
appeared nearly yielding to his powerful pressure, and
part of a panel, already loosened by Billot, broke off, and
remained in the prisoner's hands.

" Wait, wait," said Billot, who was afraid that a second
effort of so violent a nature would exhaust his strength,
which had been overtaxed — " wait."

And he redoubled his blows.

And, indeed, through the opening, w-hich was every
moment becoming wider, he could see the prisoner, who
had seated himself upon his bench, pale as a specter, and
incapable of raising the bedpost which was lying near
him, and who but a few moments before another Sumson,
seemed strong enough to shake down the walls of the
Bastile.

" Billot ! Billot ! " murmured he.

" Yes, yes ! and I also, my good doctor — I, Pitou — you
must remember poor Pitou, whom you i)laced at board
with his aunt Angelique — Pitou who has come to liberate

yon." *- ^

" But I can get through that hole," cried the doctor.
"No, no !" cried all the voices; "wait."
All those present uniting their strength in one simultane-
ous effort, some slipping a crowbar between the door and
the frame-work, others using a lever between the lock and

202 TAKING THE BASTILE.

doorpost, and the remainder pushing with all the might
of their shoulders or their hands, the oak gave a last
cracking sound, the wall gave way, and they all of them
stunihled, one over the other, into the room.

In a moment Gilbert found himself in the arms of Pitou
and Gilbert.

Gilbert, tlie little country lad of the Chdteau de Taver-
ney ; Gilbert, wliom we left bathed in his blood in a
cavern of the Azores, was now a man from thirtv-four to
thirty-five years old, of pale complexion, though he was
not sickly, with black hair, eyes penetrating and fixed.
Xever did his gaze lose itself in vacuity ; never did it
wander ; when it was not fixed on some exterior object
worthy to attract, it was fixed on his own thought, and
became only more profound and more gloomy ; his nose
was straight, being attached to his forehead in a direct
line ; it rose above a lip of rather scornful expression,
which, in the slight space between it and the nether lip,
allowed one to perceive the dazzling enamel of his teeth.
In ordinary times his dress was simple and grave, like tiiat
of a Quaker ; but this simplicity was closely allied to
elegance fi'om its extreme neatness. His height was some-
what above tlie medium stature, and he was well formed ;
as to his strength, we have just seen the feats it could per-
form when in a state of over-excitement, whether caused
by anger or enthusiastic feeling.

Although in prison for five or six days, the doctor had
paid the same attention to his person ; his beard, which
had grown some few lines, caused the paleness of his com-
plexion to contrast favorably with its darkness, and indi-
cated only a negligence which certainly was not the
prisoner's but his jailer's who had refused to give him a
razor or to allow him to be shaved.

When he had pressed Billot and Pitou in his arms, he
turned toward the crowd who had filled his dungeon.
Then, as if a moment had sufficed to restore all his self-
possession :

"Tlje day which I had foreseen has then arrived," said
he. *' Thanks to von, my friends — thanks to tlie eternal
genius wliich watches over the liberty of nations ! "

Ai)d he held out both his hands to the men who had
assisted Billot to break down the door, and who, recogniz-
ing in him, from tlie dignity of his demeanor, and his

TAKING THE BASTILE. 203

proud look, a man of superior genius, hardly dared to touch
them.

On leaving the dungeon, he walked before all these men,
leaning on Billot's shoulder, and followed by Pitou and his
liberators.

The first moment had been devoted by Gilbert to friend-
ship and to gratitude, the second had reestablished the
distance which existed between the learned doctor and the
ignorant farmer, the warm-hearted Pitou and the whole
throng which had liberated him.

When he reached the door at the foot of the staircase,
Gilbert stopped, on perceiving the broad sunshine which
beamed full upon him. He paused, crossing his arms over
his breast, and raising his eyes to heaven. "Hail to thee,
lovely Liberty ! " he exclaimed, " I saw thee spring to life
in another world, and we are old friends. Hail to thee,
lovely Liberty ! "

And the smile of the doctor clearly said, that the cries
he then heard of a whole people, inebriated with inde-
pendence, was no new thing to him.

Then meditating for a few seconds :

"Billot," said he, "the people, then, have vanquished
despotism ? "

"Yes, sir."

" And you came here to fight ? "

" I came to liberate you."

"You knew, then, of my arrest ?"

" Your son informed me of it this morning."

*' Poor Sebastian — have you seen him ?"

" I have seen him.''

" And he remained quietly at his school ? "

" I left him struggling with four of the attendants of
the infirmary."

" Is he ill — has he been delirious ? "

" He wanted to come with us to fight."

"Ah!" ejaculated the doctor, and a smile of triumph
passed over hi? features. His son had proved himself to oe
what he had hoped.

" And what did you say to him ? " inquired the doctor.

" I said, since Doctor Gilbert is in the Bastile, let us
take the Bastile j and now the Bastile is taken. But that
ifl not all."

" What is there then besides ?" asked the doctor.

204 TAKING THE BASTILE.

** The casket has been stolen."

** Tlie casket which I had confided to yoar care ?"

"Yes."

** Stolen ! and by whom ? "

" By some men dressed in black, who came into my
honse under the pretext of seizing your pamphlets ; they
arrested me, locked me up in a room, they searched the
house all over, found the casket, and carried it off."

*'■ "When did this hapi^en ? "

"Yesterday."

'•' Ho ! ho ! there is an evident connection between my
arrest and this robbery. The person who caused my ar-
rest at the same time had the casket stolen. Let me but
know the person who originated my arrest, and I shall
know who it was contrived the robbery. Where are the
archives of the fortress ? " continued the doctor, turning
to the jailer.

'•' In the courtyard of the government house, sir,"
replied the jailei*.

" Then to the archives, my friends — to the archives ! "
cried the doctor.

" Sir," said the jailer, stopping him, " let me go with
you, or speak a word in my favor to these worthy people,
that no harm may happen to me."

"Be it so," said Gilbert.

Then addressing the crowd who surrounded him, and
gazing at him with curiosity mingled with respect :

"My friends," said he, "I recommend this worthy man
to you ; he only fulfilled his ofiice in opening and shutting
the prison doors ; but he was kind toward the prisoner;
let no injury happen to him."

" Xo, no ! " cried the crowd, with one accord, "no ! —
he need not fear ; no harm shall be done to him. Let him
come with ns."

" I thank you, sir," said the jailer to the doctor ; " but
if you wish for anything in the archives, I advise you
to move quickly, for I believe they arc burning the
papers. "

" Oh ! then, there ia not an instant to be lost," cried
Gilbert. " To the archives ! "

And he hastened toward the courtyard of the government
house followed by the crowd, at the head of which were
still Billot and Pitou.

TAKING THE BASTILE. gQS

CHAPTER XIX.

Ok reaching the door of the office in which the archives
were kept, Gilbert perceived that a large heap of old papers
was being burned.

Unhappily, it is a general consequence that after having
obtained a victory, the first desire the people have to gratify
is that of destruction.

The archives of the Bastile had been invaded,

Tliis office was a vast hall, heaped up with registry books
and plans ; the documents relating to all the prisoners wlio
had been confined in the Bastile during the last hundred
years were confusedly inclosed in it.

The people tore these papers to pieces with senseless rage ;
it doubtless appeared to them that by destroying these regis-
trations of imprisonment they were legally bestowing free-
dom on the prisoners.

Gilbert went into the hall, seconded by Pitou; he began to
examine the register books which were still standing on the
shelves ; that of the running year was not to be found.

The doctor, a man who was always so cool and calm,
turned pale, and stamped with impatience.

At that moment Pitou caught sight of one of those heroic
urchins who are always to be found in popular triumphs,
who was carrying off on his head and running off with it
toward the fire a volume similar in shape and binding to
that which Dr. Gilbert had been examining.

lie ran after him, and, witli his long legs, speedily over-
took him.

It was the register of the year 1789.

The negotiation did not occupy much time. Pitou was
considered as one of the leaders of the conquerors, and
explained to the boy that a prisoner had occasion to use
tiiat register, and the urchin yielded up his prey to him,
consoling himself with the observation :

*' It is all the same to me ; I can burn another."

Pitou opened the book, turned over the leaves, hunted
through it, and on the last page found the words :

*' This day, the 0th of July, 1789, came in the Sieur G.,

206 TAKING THE BASTILE.

a philosopher and political writer, a very dangeroua per-
son ; to bo kept in close aud secret coufinemeut."

He carried the book to the doctor.

" Here, Monsieur Gilbert," said he to him, '* is not this
what you are seeking for ? "

*'0h ! "cried the doctor, joyfully, and seizing hold of
the book ; *'yes, that is it."

And he read the words we have given above.

"And now," said he, **letus see from whom the order
emanated."

And he examined the margin.

**N"ecker!" he exclaimed; 'Hhe order for my arrest
signed by Necker, my friend Necker ! Oh ! most assuredly
there must have been some foul plot ! "

" Xecker is your friend ?" cried the crowd with respect,
for it will be remembered that this name had great in-
fluence with the people.

**Yes, yes, my friends," said the doctor, "I am con-
vinced that Monsieur Xecker did not know that I was in
prison. But I will at once go to him."

" Go to him — and where ?" inquired Billot.

" To Versailles, to be sure."

" Monsieur Necker is not at Versailles ; Monsieur Xecker
is exiled."

" And where ? "

"At Brussels."

''But his daughter?"

"Ah ! I know nothing of her," replied Billot.

" His daughter is at his country house, at St. Quen," said
a voice from the crowd.

" 1 am obliged to you," replied Gilbert, not knowing
even to whom his thanks were addressed.

Ti)en, turning toward those who were occupied in burn-
ing the papers :

" ^ly friends," he said, " in the name of history, which
in these archives would find matter for the condemnation
of tyrants, let me conjure you not to pursue this work for
destruction, demolish the Bastile, stone by stone, that not
a vestige, not a trace of it remain, but respect the papers,
respect the registers ; the enlightenment of the future is
contained in them.

'J'he crowd had scarroly heard these words, than, with its
usual admirable intelligence, it duly weighed this reasoning.

TAKING THE BASTILE. .. 207

"The doctor is right ! '^ cried a hundred voices; *'no
more devastation of these papers ! Let us remove all tliese
papers to the Hotel de Ville I "

A fireman v/ho, with a number of his companions, had
dragged an engine into the courtyard, on hearing the re-
port that the governor was about to blow up the fortress,
directed the pipe of his hose upon the buriiing pile, which,
like to tliat of Alexandria, was about to destroy the archives
of a world ; in a few minutes it was extinguished.

*' And at whose request were you arrested ? " said Billot
to Gilbert.

" Ah ! that is precisely what I am endeavoring to dis-
cover and cannot ascertain — the name is left in blank.''

Then, after a moment's reflection :

"But I will find it out," said he.

And tearing out tiie leaf on which the entry was made
regarding him, he folded it up, and put it into his pocket.
Then addressing himself to Billot and Pitou :

" My friends," said he, * ' let us leave this place ; we have
nothing further to do here."

"Well, let us go," replied Billot; "only it is a thing
more easily talked about than done."

And, in fact, the crowd, urged into the interior court-
yards by curiosity, were so closely packed, that egress was
almost impossible. And, to add to the difficulty, the other
liberated prisoners were standing close to the principal
gate.

Eight prisoners, including Gilbert, had been liberated
that morning.

Their names were : Jean Bechade, Bernard Laroche,
Antoine Pujade, De White, Le Comte de Solage, and
Tavern ier.

The four first inspired but little interest. They were
accused of having forged a bill of exchange, without any
proof wliatsoever being brought against them, and wliich
led to the supposition that the charge against them was
false ; they had been only two years in the Bastile.

The Count de Solage was a man about thirty years of
age, of joyous and expansive temperament ; he embraced
his liberators, congratulated them upon their victory,
which he loudly extolled, and related to them the history
of his captivity. He had been arrested in 1782, and im-
prisoned at Viucennes, his father having obtained uleitre

208 TAKING THE BASTILE.

de cachet against liim, and was removed from that castle
to the Bastile, where he had remained five years without
ever having seen a judge or having been examined even
once ; his father had been dead two years, and no one had
ever tliought of him. If the Bastile had not been taken,
it is probable that no one would have ever remembered
that he was tiiere.

De AVhite was a man advanced in years, somewhere
about sixty ; he uttered strangely incoherent words, and
with a foreign accent. To the questions which poured in
npon him from all sides, he replied that he did not know
how long he had been incarcerated, or what had been the
cause of his arrest. He remembered that he was the cous-
in of M. de Sartines, and that was all. One of the turn-
keys, whose name was Guyon, said that he had seen M. de
Sartines, on one occasion, go into White's cell, where he
made him sign a power of attorney. But the prisoner had
completely forgotten the circumstance.

Tavernier was the oldest of tliem all. He had been shut
up for ten years in the lies Sainte Marguerite ; thirty years
had he been immured in the Bastile. He was upward of
ninety years old, with white hair and long white beard ;
his eyes had become dimmed by remaining so long in a
dark cell, and he saw everything as through a cloud. When
the crowd broke open his door, he could not comprehend
what they wanted with him ; when they spoke to him of
liberty he shook his head ; then, afterward, when they
told him that the Bastile was taken :

" Ho ! ho ! " cried he, " what will Louis XV., Madame
de Pompadour, and the Duke de la Vrilliere say to all
this ? "

Tavernier was not even mad ; like De White, he had
become an idiot.

The joy of these men was frightful to behold, for it cried
aloud for vengeance, so much did it resemble terror. Two
or three of them seemed almost expiring in the midst of
the clamor raised by a hundred thousand voices. Poor
men ! they who during the whole time of their confine-
ment in the Bastile had never heard two human voices
Bpcaking at the same moment ; they who were no longer
accustomed to any noises but the luw and mysterious one
of wood, when warping with the damp, that of the spider,
when, unperceived, he weaves hia net with a ticking simi-

TAKING THE BASTILE. 209

lar to that of an invisible pendulum, or of the affrighted
rat, which gnaws and flies at the least stir.

At the moment tliat Gilbert made his appearance, tlie
most enthusiastic among the crowd proposed tliat the i)ris-
oner should be carried iu triumph — a proposal which was
unanimously adopted.

Gilbert would have much desired to avoid this species
of ovation ; but there were no means of escaping it ;
he had been at once recognized, as well as Billot and
Pitou.

Cries of " To the Hotel de Ville ! To the Hotel de
Ville ! " resounded on all sides, and Gilbert was raised in
an instant on the shoulders of twenty persons.

In vain did the doctor resist, in vain did Billot and Pitou
distribute among their victorious brethren the most vigor-
ous fisticuffs ; joy and enthusiasm had hardened the skins
of the populace. These, and even blows given with pike-
handles and the butt-ends of muskets, appeared only gentle
caresses to the conquerors, and only served to redouble
tlieir delight.

Gilbert was therefore compelled to mount the triumphal
car.

This car was formed of a square table, in the middle of
which was stuck a lance, to serve as a support to the victor,
and enable him to preserve his balance.

The doctor, therefore, was raised above this sea of heads,
which undulated from the Bastile to the Arcade St. Jean,
a tempestuous sea, whose waves were bearing, in the midst
of pikes and bayonets, and arms of every description, of
every form, and of every age, the triumphant prisoners.

But at tliesame time, this terrible and irresistible ocean
was rolling on anotlier group, so compact and closely
formed that it appeared an island. This group was the
one which was leading away De Launay as a prisoner.

Around this group rose cries not less tumultuous nor
less enthusiastic than those which accompanied the pris-
oners ; but they were not shouts of triumph, they were
threats of death.

Gilbert, from his elevated position, did not lose a single
detail of this frightful spectacle.

He was the only one among all the prisonei*8 who had
been restored to liberty who was in the enjoyment of all
bis faculties. Five days of captivity were merely a dark

210 TAKING THE BASTILE,

spot in his life. His eyes had not been weakened or ren-
dered dim by his short sojourn in the Bastile.

A combat, generally, does not have the effect of render-
ing the combatants pitiless, excepting during the time
that it continues. Men, generally, "when issuing from a
struggle in which they have risked their lives, without re-
ceiving injury, are full of kindly feelings toward their
enemies.

But in the great popular commotions, such as those of
which France had seen so many from the times of the Jac-
querie down to our own days, the masses whom fear lias
withheld from aiding in the fight, whom noise has irri-
tated, the masses at once ferocious and cowardly, endeavor,
after the victory has been gained, to claim their share of
the triumph which they had not dared to accelerate.
They take their share in the vengeance.

From the momeiit of his leaving the Bastile, the proces-
sion was the commencement of the governor's execution.

Elie, who had taken the governor's life under his own
responsibility, marched at the head of the group, protected
by his uniform and by the admiration of the people, who
had seen him one of the first to advance amid the enemy's
fire. He carried his sword above his head, on the point
of which was the note which M. de Launay had caused to
be handed to the people through one of the loopholes of
the Bastile.

After him came the guard of the royal taxes, holding in
his hand the key of the fortress ; then Maillard, bearing
the standard ; and after him a young man carrying the reg-
ulations of the Bastile on his bayonet ; an odious rescript,
by means of which so many bitter tears had flowed.

The governor walked next, protected by Hullin and two
or three others, but who disappeared aniid the throng of
threatening fists, of waving sabers, Jand of quivering
lances.

By the side of this group, and rolling onward in an al-
most parallel line with it in the great artery of the Rue St.
Antoine, which leads from the boulevard to the river, an-
other could be distinguished, not less threatening, not less
terrible than the first ; it was that which was dragging
forward Major de Losme, whom we have seen for a mo-
ment combating the will of the governor, and who at
length had been compelled to bow down his head before

TAKING THE BASTILE. 211

the determination which De Lannay had taken to defend
himself.

Major de Losme was a worthy, brave, and excellent
yonng man. Since he had been in the Bastile he had al-
leviated the sorrows of many of the prisoners by his kind
treatment of them. But the people were ignorant of this.
The people, from his brillant uniform, imagined that he
was the governor. Whereas the governor, thanks to his
gray coat, on which there was no embroidery whatsoever,
and from which he had torn the ribbon of the Order of St.
Louis, was surrounded, as it were, by a protecting doubt
which could be dispelled by those only who were ac-
quainted with his person.

Such was the spectacle which offered itself to the grieved
eyes of Dr. Gilbert. His look, even in the midst of
dangers, was always calm and observing, qualities which
were inherent in his powerful organization.

Hullin, on leaving the Bastile, had called around him his.
most trusty and devoted friends, the most valiant of the
popular soldiers of that day, and four or five had res-
ponded to his call, and endeavored to second him in his
generous design of protecting the governor. Among them
are three men of whom impartial history has consecrated
the memory ; their names were Arne, Cliollat, and De
Lepine.

These men, preceded, as we have said, by Hullin and
Maillard, were therefore endeavoring to defend the life
of one whose death a hundred thousand men were clam-
orously calling for.

Around them had ranged themselves some grenadiers of
the French Guard, whose uniform having become popular
during the last two days, was an object of veneration to
the people.

M. de Launay had escaped receiving any blow as long
as the arms of his generous defenders were able to ward
them off ; but he had not escaped insulting language and
threats.

At the corner of the Rue de Jouy, of the five grenadiers
of the French Guards who had joined the procession on
leaving the Bastile, not one remained. They had one
after the other been carried off on the way, by the enthu-
siasm of the crowd, and perliaps also by the calculation of
assassins, and Gilbert had seen them disappear one after

212 TAKING THE BASTILE.

the other, like beads from a rosary from which the cord
has been broken.

From that moment he had foreseen that the victory
which had been gained was about to be tarnished by a
sanguinary sacrifice ; he had attempted to jump from the
table which served him as a triumphal car, but arms of
iron had riveted him to it. In his powerless position he
had directed Billot and Pitou to rush forward to defend
the governor, and both of them, obedient to his voice, had
made every effort to cleave through the human waves and
and get near to M. de Launay.

And, in fact, the little group of his defenders stood ia
great need of a reinforcement. Chollat, who had not
tasted food since the previous evening, had felt his strength
giving way, and at length had fainted ; it was with great
difficulty that he had been raised and saved from being
trampled under foot.

^ Bat this was a breach made in the wall, a falling in of
the dike,

A man rushed through this breach, and whirling the
butt of his gun over his head, aimed a deadly blow at the
uncovered head of the governor.

But De Lepine, who saw the terrific blow descending,
had time enough to throw himself, with outstretched arms,
between the governor and his assailant, and received on
his forehead the blow intended for the governor.

Stunned by the shock, blinded with his own blood,
which streamed into his eyes, he staggered, and covered
his face witli his hands, and, when lie could again see,
the governor was twenty paces from him.

It was at this moment that Billot, dragging Pitou after
him through the crowd, came up to him.

He perceived tliat what exposed M. de Launay, above
all, to observation, was his being the only man in the
crowd who was bareheaded.

Billot took his hat, stretched out his arm, and placed it
on tlic governor's head.

De Launay turned round and recognized Billot.

" I thank you," he said ; " but whatever you may do,
you will not save me."

** Let U3 only reach the Hotel de Ville," said Hullin,
*' and 1 will answer for your safety."

" Yes," replied De Launay, " but shall wo reach it ?"

TAKING THE BASTILE. 213

" With the help of God we will attempt it," rejoined
Hullin.

And, in fact, there was some hope of succeeding, for
they were just entering the square before the Hotel de
Ville ; but this square was thronged with men with naked
arm's, brandishing pikes and sabers. The report, which
had flown from street to street, had announced to them
that the governor and the major of the Bastile were being
brought to them ; and like a pack of hungry hounds eager
to be loosed upon their prey, they awaited, grinding their
teeth and impatient for their approach.

As soon as they saw the procession approach they rushed
toward the governor.

Hullin saw that this was the moment of extreme danger,
of the last struggle ; if he could only get the governor to
the front steps, and get him to rush up the staircase, De
Launay was saved.

*' To me, Elie ! — to me, Maillard I — to me all men with
hearts," cried he ; " our honor is at stake."

Elie and Maillard heard the appeal ; they made a rush
into the center of the mob, and the people seconded them
but too well ; they made way for them to pass, but closed
in behind them.

In this manner Elie and Maillard were separated from
the principal group, and were prevented returning to it.

The crowd saw the advantage it had gained, and made
a furious effort. Like an enormous boa, it intwined its
gigantic folds around the group. Billot was lifted off his
feet and dragged away ; Pitou, who thought only of Billot,
allowed himself to be forced away in the same throng.
Hullin, being hurried on by the crowd, stumbled against
the first step of the Hotel do Ville, and fell. He got up,
but it was to fall again almost immediately, and this time
De Launay fell with him.

The governor was constant to the last ; up to the final
moment he uttered not a single complaint ; he did not
ask for mercy, but he cried out in a loud, shrill tone :

" Tigers, that you are, at all events do not allow me to
remain thus in suspense ; kill me at once ! "

Never >vas order more promptly executed than this
reproachful request of the poor governor. In an instant
around the fallen De Launay every head was bowed down
toward him. For a moment nothing could be seen but

214: TAKING THE BASTILE.

upraised and threatening liiuids, grasping poniards which
as suddenly disappeared ; tiien was seen a licad severed
from tiie body, and wliicLi was raised, still streaming with
blood, upon the end of a pike ; the features had retained
their livid and contemptuous smile.

This was the first.

Gilbert, from his elevated position, could see all that was
passing ; Gilbert had once more attempted to spring to
the assistance of the governor, but two hundred arms
prevented him.

He turned his head from the disgusting spectacle and
sighed.

This head, with its staring eyes, was raised immediately
in front, as if to salute him with a last look, of the window
in wliich De Flesselles was standing surrounded and pro-
tected by the electors.

It would have been difficult to decide Avhcther the face
of the living or that of tlie dead man was the most pale
and livid.

Suddenly an immense uproar arose from the spot on
which was lying the mutilated body of De Launay. His
pockets had been searched by his assassins, and in his
breast-pocket had been found the note which the provost
of the merchants had addressed to him, and which he had
shown to De Losme.

This note, our readers may remember, was couched in
the following terms :

" Hold firm ! I amuse the Parisians with cockades and
promises. Before the close of the day Monsieur de
Bezenval will send you a reinforcement.

" De Flesselles."

The most blasphemous imprecations roso from the pave-
ment of the square to the window of the Hotel de Ville iu
which Do Flesselles was staniling.

Without guessing the cause of this new tumult, he fully
comprehended the threat, and hastily drew back from the
window ; but he had been seen, every one knew that he
was there ; the crowd rushed up the staircase, and this
time the movement was so universal that the men who had
been carrying Dr. Gil])ert abandoned him to follow the
living tide which was overflowing the great staircase.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 215

* Gilbert would also have gone into the Hotel de Ville,
not to threaten, but to protect Flesselles. He had already
ascended three or four of the front steps, when he felt
himself violently pulled back. He turned round to
disengaged himself from this new obstruction, but he
recoo'uized Billot and Pitou.

''Oh !" exclaimed Gilbert, who from his commanding
position could glance over the whole square, " what can
they be doing yonder ? "

And he pointed with his convulsively clinched hand to
the corner of the Rue de la Tixeranderie.

" Come with us, doctor, come ! " simultaneously cried
Billot and Pitou.

'' Oh, the assassins ! " cried the doctor, *' the assassins ! '*

And indeed at that moment Major de Losme fell, killed
by a desperate blow from a hatchet — the people confound-
ing in their rage the egotistical and barbarous governor,
who had been the persecutor of his prisoners, with the
generous man who had been their friend and reliever.

"■ Oh ! yes, yes," said he ; " let us be gone, for I begin
to be ashamed of having been liberated by such men,"

"Doctor," said Billot, "be not uneasy on that score.
The men who fought down yonder are not the same men
who are committing these horrid massacres."

But at the moment when the doctor was about to de-
scend the steps which he had gone up, to hasten to the
assistance of Flesselles, the flood which had poured into
the building was again vomited forth. Amid the torrent
of men was one who was struggling furiously as they
dragged him forward.

" To the Palais Royal ! to the Palais Royal !" cried the
crowd.

" Yes, my friends — yes, my good friends — to the Palais
Royal I " repeated the man.

And they went toward the river, as if this human in-
undation had wished, not to bear him toward the Palais
Royal, but to drag him toward the Seine.

" Oh ! " cried Gilbert, " here is another they are about
to murder ; let us endeavor to save him at least." But
scarcely had he pronounced these words, when a pistol
shot was heard, and De Flesselles disapi:)eared amid the
smoke.

Gilbert covered his eyes with both his hands, with a

216 TAiQNG THE BASTILE.

gestnre of excessive anger ; he cursed the people who, after
having shown tiiemselvcs so great, liad not tlie firmness to
remain pure, and had sullied the victory they had gained
by a triple assassination.

Then, when he removed his hands from his eyes, he saw
three heads raised above the crowd on three pikes.

The first was that of De Flesselles, the second that of
De Losme, the third that of De Launay.

The one rose above tlie front steps of the H6tel de Ville,
the otiier from tlie middle of the Rue de la Tixerauderie,
the third on the Quay Pelletier.

From their relative positions they assumed the form of
a triangle.

*'0h, Balsamo ! Balsamo !" murmured the doctor, with
a sigh ; " it is tlien such a triangle as this that is to be
symbolical of liberty ! "

And he ran along the Rue de la Vanuerie, Billot and
Pitou accompanying him.

CHAPTER XX.

At the corner of the Rue Planche Mibray the doctor
met a hackney-coach, made a sign to the coachman to
stop, and hastily got into it.

liillot and Pitou quickly followed him.

" To the College of Louis le Grand ! " cried Gilbert, and
threw himself into one corner of the vehicle, where he
fell into a profound reverie, which was respected by Billot
and Pitou.

They went over the Pont au Change by the Rue de le
Cite, the Rue St. Jacques, and at length reached the
College Louis le Grand.

All Paris was trembling with emotion. The news had
spread rapidly throughout the city ; rumors of tho assas-
sinations on the Place de la Greve were mingled with the
glorious recital of the taking of the Bastile. On every
face could be seen depicted the various emotions to which
the news gave rise, according to the varied feelings they
excited — the lightnings of the soul which thus betrayed
themselves.

Gilbert had not onoe looked out of the roach window —
Gilbert had not uttered a single word. There is always a

TAKING THE BASTILE. 217

ridiculous side in popular ovations, and Gilbert contem-
plated his ovation in that point of view.

And besides, it also appeared to him that notwithstand-
ing all he had done to prevent it, some drops of the blood
which had been slied would fall upon his head.

The doctor alighted from tlie hackney-coach at the
college gate^ and made a sign to Billot to follow him.

As to Pitou, he discreetly remained in the coach.

Sebastian was still in the infirmary. The principal, in
person, on Dr. Gilbert's being announced, conducted him
thither.

Billot, who althougli not a very acute observer, well
knew the character of both father and son — Billot atten-
tively examined the scene which was passing before his
eyes.

Weak, irritable, and nervous as the boy had shown him-
self in the moment of despair, he evinced an equal degree
of tranquillity and reserve in the moment of joy.

On perceiving his father he turned pale, and words
failed him. A slight trembling shook his legs," and then
he ran and threw his arms around his father's neck, ut-
tering a cry of joy, which resembled a cry of grief, and
then held him silently clasped within his arms.

The doctor responded as silently to this mute pressure ;
only after having embraced his son he looked at him with
an expression that was more sorrowful than joyous.

A more skilful observer than Billot would have said
that some misfortune or some crime existed in the rela-
tions between that youth and that man.

The youth was less reserved in his conduct toward Billot.
When he could observe any one excepting his father, who
had in the first moment engrossed all his attention, he
raji to the good farmer, and threw his arms round his
neck, saying :

" You are a worthy man. Monsieur Billot ; you have
kept your promise to me, and I thank you for it."

"Yes, yes," replied Billot; "and it was not without
some trouble, I can assure you, Monsieur Sebastian.
Your father was very nicely and safely locked up, and it
was necessary to do a tolerable deal of damage before we
could get him out."

"■ Sebastian," inquired the doctor, with some anxiety,
**you are in good health ?"

10 — Dumas — Vol. IX

218 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"Yes, father." replied the youug man, ''although you
find me here in the iulirnuiry."

Gilbert smiled,

" I know why it was you were brought here," said he.

The boy smiled in his turn.

"Have you everything you require here?" continued
the doctor.

*' Everything — thanks to you."

*' I shall then, my dear boy, still recommend to you the
same, the only line of conduct — study assiduouslv."

"Yes, father."

" I know that to you the word study is not a vain and
monotonous word ; if I believed it to be so, I would no
longer say it."

" Father, it is not for me to reply to you on that head ;
it is the province of Monsieur Berardier, our excellent
principal."

The doctor turned toward M. Berardier, who made a
sign that he had something to say to him.

"I will speak to you again in a moment, Sebastian,"
said the doctor.

And he went over to the principal.

"Sir," said Sebastian, with anxious feeling, to Billot,
" can anything unfortunate have happened to Pitou ?
The poor lad is not with you."

" He is at the door, in a hackney-coach," replied Billot.

"Father," said Sebastian, "will you allow Monsieur
Billot to fetch Pitou to me ? I should be very glad to
see him."

Gilbert gave an affirmative nod ; Billot left the room.

" What is it you would say to me ?" inquired Gilbert
of the Abbe Berardier.

" I wished to tell you, sir, that it is not study that you
should recommend to the young lad, but, on the contrary,
to amuse himself."

"And on what account, good abbe ?"

" Yes, he is an excellent young num, whom everybody
here loves as a son or as a brother, but

The abbe paused.

" But wliat ?" cried Gilbert, with anxiety.

" But if great care be not taken. Monsieur Gilbert,
there is something that will kill him."

"And what is that ?" said Gilbert.

TAKING THE BASTILB. 219

** The study which you so strongly recommend to him.'"

" Study ? "

** Yes, sir, study. If you could but see him seated at
his desk, his arms crossed, poring over his dictionary,
with eyes fixed "

" Studying or dreaming ? " asked Gilbert.

" Studying, sir ; endeavoring to find a good expression
— the antique style, the Greek or Latin form — seeking for
it for hours together ; and see ! even at this very moment
— look at him ! "

And indeed the young man, although it was not five
minutes since his father had been speaking to him,
although Billot had scarcely shut the door after him,
Sebastian had fallen into a reverie which seemed closely
allied to ecstasy.

*' Is he often tlins ?" anxiously inquired Gilbert.

" Sir, I could almost say that this is his habitual state ;
only see how deeply he is meditating."

" You are right, sir ; and when you observe him in this
state, you should endeavor to divert his thoughts."

*' And yet it would be a pity, for the results of these
meditations are compositions which will one day do great
honor to the College Louis le Grand. I predict that in
three years from this time that youth yonder will bear off
all the prizes of our examination."

"Take care!" replied the doctor; "this species of
absorption of thought, in which you see Sebastian now
plunged, is rather a proof of weakness than of strength, a
symptom rather of malady than of health. You are right.
Monsieur Principal ; it will not do to recommend assidu-
ous application to that child ; or, at least, we must know
how to distinguish study from such a state of reverie."

" Sir, I can assure you that he is studying."

" What, as we see him now ?"

" Yes ; and the proof is, that his task is always finished
before that of the other scholars. Do you see how his lips
move ? He is repeating his lessons."

"Well, then, whenever he is repeating his lessons in
this manner. Monsieur Berardier, divert his attention from
them. He will not know his lessons the worse for it, and
his health w.ill be the better for it."

"Do you think so ?"

**I um sure of it."

220 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" "Well," cried the good abbe, ''you ought to under-
stand these matters, you, whom Messieurs de Condorcet
and Cabanis proclaim to be one of the most learned mea
now existing in the world."

" Only," rejoined Gilbert, "when you wish to draw him
out of such reveries, you must do it with much precau-
tion ; speak to him very softly in the first instance, and
then louder."

"And why so ? "

" To bring him gradually back to this world, which his
mind has left."

The abbe looked at the doctor with astonishment ; it
would not have required much to make him believe that
he was mad.

" Observe," continued the doctor; "you shall see the
proof of what I am saying to you."

Billot and Pitou entered the room at this moment ; in
three strides Pitou was at the side of the dreaming
youth.

"You asked for me, Sebastian," said Pitou to him;
" that was very kind of you."

And he placed his large head close to the pale face of
the young lad.

" Look ! " said Gilbert, seizing the abbe's arm.

And indeed, Sebastian thus abruptly aroused from his
reverie by the cordial affection of Pitou, staggered, his
face became more lividly pale, his head fell on one side,
as if his neck had not sufficient strength to support it, a
painful sigh escaped his breast, and then the blood again
rushed to his face.

He shook his head and smiled.

" Ah, it is you, Pitou ; yes, that is true — I asked for
you."

And then, looking at him :

"You have been fighting, then ?'

" Yes, and like a brave lad, too," said Billot.

"Why did you not take me with you ?" said the child,
in a reproachful tone. "I would have fought also, and
then I should at least have done something for my
father."

" Sebastian," said Gilbert, going to his son, and pressv
ing his head to his breast, " you can do much more for
your father than to fight for him ; you can listen to his

TAKING THE BASTILE. • 221

advice, and follow it — become a distiuguislied and cele-
brated man."

'" As you are ? " said the boy, with proud emotion.
*' Oh ! it is that which I aspire to."

" Sebastian," said the doctor, " now that you have em-
braced both Billot aud Pitou, our good friends, will you
come into the garden with me for a few minutes, that we
may have a little talk together ? "

" "Witli great delight, father. Only two or three times
in my whole life have I been alone with you, and those
moments, with all their details, are always present in my
memory."

'^' You will allow us, good Monsieur Principal ?" said
Gilbert.

" How can you doubt it ?"

" Billot and Pitou, you must, my friends, stand in need
of some refreshment ? "

" Upon my word, I do," said Billot ; '' I have eaten
nothing since the morning, and I believe that Pitou has
fasted as long as I have."

" I beg your pardon," replied Pitou, ** I ate a crumb of
bread and two or three sausages just the moment before I
dragged you out of the water ; but a bath always makes
one hungry."

" Well, then, come to the refectory," said the Abb6
Berardier, " and you shall have some dinner."

*'Ho! ho!" cried Pitou.

" You are afraid of our college fare ! " cried the abbe ;
"but do not alarm yourselves; you shall be treated as in-
vited guests. Moreover, it appears to me," continued
the abbe, " that it is not alone your stomach that is in a
dilapitated state, my dear Monsieur Pitou."

Pitou cast a look replete with modesty on his own
person.

" And that if you were offered a pair of breeches as well
as a dinner "

** The fact is, I would accept them, good Monsieur
Berardier," replied Pitou.

"Well, then, come with me ; both the breeches and the
dinner are at your service."

And he led oil: Billot and Pitou by one door, while Gil-
bert and his son, waving their hands to them, went out at
another.

222 TAKING THE BASTILE.

The latter crossed a yard wliich served as a play-ground
to the young collegians, and went into a small garden
reserved for the professors, a cool and shady retreat, in
wiiich the venerable Abbe Berardier was wont to read his
Tacitus and his Juvenal.

Gilbert seated himself upon a bench, overshadowed by
an alcove of clematis and virgin vines : then, drawing
Sebastian close to him, and parting the long hair which
fell upon his forehead :

" Well, my child," said he, '* w^e are then once more
tinited."

Sebastian raised his eyes to lieaven.

"Yes, father, and by a miracle performed by God."

Gilbert smiled.

*' If there be any miracle," said Gilbert, " it was the
brave people of Paris who have accomplished it."

*' My father," said the boy, " set not God aside in all
that lias just occurred ; for 1, when I saw you come in,
instinctively offered my thanks to God for your deliver-
ance."

''And Billot?"

** Billot I thanked after thanking God."

Gilbert reflected.

" You are right, child," said he ; ''God is everything.
But now let us speak of you, and let ns have some little
conversation before we again separate."

" Are we then to be again separated, father ? "

"Xotforalong time, I presume. But a casket, con-
taining some very precious documents, has disappeared
from Billot's house, at the same time that I was arrested
and sent to the Bastile. I must, therefore, endeavor to
discover who it was that caused my imprisonment — who
has carried off the casket."

" It is well, father ; I will wait to see you again — till
your inquiries shall be completed."

And the boy sighed deeply.

"You are sorrowful, Sebastian ?" said the doctor, in-
quiringly.

"Yes."

" And why are you sorrowful ?"

** I do not know. It appears to me that life has not
been sliapod for me as it has been for other children."

" What are you saying there, Sebastian ?"

TAKING THE BASTILE. 223

"The truth."

'* Explain yourself

" They all have amusements, pleasures, while I have

none."

" You have no amusements, no pleasures ? "
" 1 moan to say, father, that I take no pleasure in those
games which form the amusement of boys of my own

age."

" Take care, Sebastian ; 1 should much regret that you
should be of such a disposition. Sebastian, minds that
give promise of a glorious future are like good fruits dur-
ing their growth ; they have their bitterness, their acidity,
their greenness, before they can delight the palate by their
matured full flavor. Believe me, my child, it is good to
have been young."

"It is not my fault that I am so/' replied the young
man, with a melancholy smile.

Gilbert pressed both his soir's hands within his own, and
fixing his eyes intently upon Sebastian's, continued :

*' Your age, my son, is that of the seed when germinat-
ing ; nothing should yet appear above the surface of all
that study lias sown in you. At the age of fourteen, Se-
bastian, gravity is either pride, or it proceeds from malady.
1 have asked you whether your health was good, and you
replied affirmatively. I am going to ask you whether yon
are proud ; try to reply to me that you are not."

" Father," said the boy, " on that head you need not be
alarmed. That which renders me so gloomy is neither
sickness nor pride — no, it is a settled grief."

" A settled grief, poor child ! And what grief, good
Heaven, can you have at your age ? Come, now, speak
out."

"No, father, no ; some other time. You have told me
that you were in a hurry. You have only a quarter of an
hour to devote to me. Let us speak of other things than
my follies."

" No, Sebastian ; I should be uneasy were I to leave
you so. Tell me whence proceeds your grief."

" \n truth, fatlier, I do not dare."

"What do you fear ?"

" I fear that in your eyes I shall ap])ear a visionary ; or
perhaps tiiat I may speak to you of things that will afflict
you."

224 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' Yon afflict me much more by withholding your secret
from me."

'* You know well tliat I have no secrets from you,
father."

" Speak out, theu."

"Really, I dare not."

" Sebastian, you, who have the pretension of being a
man, to "

" It is precisely for that reason."

" Come, now, take courage."

" Well, then, father, it is a droam.'*

" A dream which terrifies you ? "

'' Yes, and no ; for when I am dreaming I am not terri-
fied ; but as if transported into another world."-

'•■ Explain yourself."

*' When still quite a child I had these visions. You
cannot but remember that two or three times I lost myself
in those great woods which surround the village in which
I was brought up."

" Yes, I remember being told of it."

*' Well, then, at those times I was following a species of
phantom."

''What say you?" cried Gilbert, looking at his son
with an astonishment that seemed closely allied to terror.

"Well, then, father, I will tell you all. I used to play,
as did the other children in the village. As long as thore
were children with me, or near me, 1 saw nothing ; but if
I separated from them, or went beyond the last vilhige
garden, I felt something near, like the rustling of a gown.
I would stretch out my arms to catch it, and I embraced
only the air ; but as the rustling sound became lost in the
distance, the phantom itself became visible. It was at
first a vapor as transparent as a cloud ; then the vapor be-
came more condensed, and assumed a human form. The
form was that of a woman gliding along the ground rather
than walking, and becoming more and more visible as it
plunged into the shady parts of the forest. Tlien an
unknown, extraordinary, and almost irresistible power
impelled me to pursue this form. I pursued hor with
outstretched arms, mute as herself ; for of ten I attempted
to call her, and never could my tongue articulate a sound.
I pursued her tlius, althontrh slio never stopped, although
I never could como up with her, until the same prodigy

TAKING THE BASTILE. 225

which aniionnced her presence to me warned me of her
departure. This woman vanished gradually from my
sight, matter became once more vapor, the vapor became
volatilized, and all was ended, and I, exliansted with
fatigue, would fall down on the spot where she had dis-
appeared. It was there that Pitou would find me, some-
times the same day, but sometimes only the next morning."

Gilbert continued gazing at his son Avith increasing
anxiety. He had placed his fingers on his pulse. Sebas-
tian at once comprehended the feeling which agitated the
doctor.

''Oh! do not be uneasy, father," said he. "I know
that there was nothing real in all this. I know that it
was a vision, and nothing more."

''And this woman ?" inquired the doctor, "what was
her appearance ? "

" Oh ! as majestic as a queen."

" And her face, did you sometimes see it, child ?"

" Yes."

" And how long ago ? " asked Gilbert, shuddering.

" Only since I have been here," replied the youth.

" But here in Paris you have not the forest of Yillers-
Cotterets, the tall trees forming a dark and mysterious
arch of verdure. At Paris you have no longer that silence,
that solitude, the natural element of phantoms.

"Yes, father, I have all these."

"Where, then ?"

"Here, in this garden."

" "What mean you by staying here ? Is not this garden
set apart for the professors ? "

"It is so, my father ; but two or three times it appeared
to me that I saw this woman glide from the courtyard
into the garden, and each time I would have followed her,
but the closed doors always prevented me. Then one day
the Abbe Berardier, being highly satisfied with my com])0-
sition, asked me if there was anything I particularly de-
sired ; and I asked him to allow me sometimes to walk in
the garden with him. He gave me the permission. I
came, and here, father, the vision reappeared to me."

Gilbert trembled.

"Strange hallucination," said he; " but, nevertheless,
very possible in a temperament so highly nervous as yours.
And you have seen her face, then ? "

226 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"Yes, father."

*' Do you roinember it ? "

The youth smiled.

" Did you ever attempt to go near her ?"

**Yes."

" To hold out your hand to her ? "

** It was then that she would disappear."

'' And, in your opinion, Sebastian, who is this
woman ?"

*' It appears to me that she is my mother."

" Your mother !" exclaimed Gilbert, turning pale.

And he pressed his hand against his heart, as if to stop
the bleeding of a painful wound.

*' But this is all a dream," cried he ; " and really 1 am
almost as mad as you are."

The youth remained silent, and looked at his father.

" Well ?" said the latter, in the accent of inquiry.

" Well," replied Sebastian, " it is possible that it may
be all a dream ; but the reality of my dream is no less
existing."

"What say you ?"

" 1 say that at the last festival of Pentecost, when we
were taken to walk in the wood of Satory, near Versailles,
and that while there, as I was dreaming under a tree, and
separated from my companions "

" The same vision again appeared to you ?"

" Yes ; but this time in a carriage, drawn by four mag-
nificent horses. But this time real, absolutely living. I
very nearly fainted."

" And why so ?"

" I do not know."

" And what impression remained npon your mind from
this new vision ? "

" That it was not my mother whom I had seen appear-
ing to me in a dream, since this woman was the same I
always saw in my vision, and my mother was dead."

Gilbert rose and pressed his hand to his forehead. A
strange swimming of the head had just seized him.

The young lad remarked his agitation, and was alarmed
at his sudden paleness.

" Ah I " said he, " you see now, father, how wrong I was
to relate to you all my follies."

" No, my child, no. On the contrary," said the doctor,

TAKING THE BASTILE. 227

" speak of them often to me ; speak of them to me every
time yoa see me, aud we will endeavor to cure you of
them."

Sebastian shook his head.

" Cure me ! and for whaj; ? " asked he. " I have been
accustomed to this dream. It has become a portion of
my existence. I love that vision, although it flies from me,
and sometimes seems to repel me. Do not, therefore, cure
me of it, father. You may again leave me, travel once
more, perhajis go again to America. Having that vision,
I am not completely alone in the world."

"In fine," murmured the doctor, and pressing Sebastian
to his breast, " till we meet again, my child," said he, " and
then I hope we shall no more leave each other ; for should
I again leave France, I will at least -endeavor to take you
with me."

"Was my mother beautiful ? " asked the child.

" Oil, yes, very beautiful ! " replied the doctor, in a voice
almost choked by emotion.

" And did she love you as much as I love you ? "

'*' Sebastian ! Sebastian ! never speak to me of your
mother ! " cried the doctor.

And pressing his lips for the last time to the forehead
of the youth, he rushed out of the garden.

Instead of following him, the child fell back, overcome
by his feelings, on the bench,

In the courtyard, Gilbert found Billot and Pitou, com-
pletely invigorated by the good cheer they had partaken
of. They were relating to the Abbe Bcrardier all the cir-
cumstances regarding the capture of the Bastile.

Gilbert again entered into the conversation with the
Abbe Bcrardier, in which he pointed out to him the line
of conduct he should observe with regard to Sebastian.

He then got into the hackney-coach with his two com-
panions.

CHAPTER XXI.

WnEN Gilbert resumed his place in the hackney-coach
"by tlie side of Billot, and opposite to Pitou, he was 2>ale,
and the perspiration was standing in large drops on his
forehead.

228 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Bnt it was not in the nature of this man to remain for
any time overwhelmed by any emotion whatsioever. He
threw himself back into the corner of the carriage, pressed
both his hands to his forehead, as if he wished to repress
the boiling thoughts which raged within it, and, after re-
maining a few moments motionless, he withdrew his hands,
and, instead of an agitated countenance, he exhibited fea-
tures which were particularly calm.

*' You told me, I think, my dear Monsieur Billot, that
the king had dismissed Monsieur de Necker ?"

'' Yes, indeed. Monsieur Gilbert."

" And that the commotions in Paris originated in some
measure from the disgrace of the minister ?"

" Very much/'

'• Autl you added that Monsieur de Necker had imme-
diately left Versailles."

" He received the king's letter while at dinner. In an
hour afterward he was on the road to Brussels."

" To Brussels ? "

" "Where he is now, or ought to be."

" Did you not hear it said that he had stopped some-
where on the road ?"

" Oh, yes ; he stopped at St. Ouen, in order to take
leave of his daughter, the Baroness de Stael."

" Did Madame de Stael go with him ? "

" I have been told that he and his wife only set out for
Brussels."

"Coachman !" cried Gilbert, ''stop at the first tailor's
shop you sec."

'* You wish to change your coat ?" said Billot.

*' Yes. In good sooth, this one smells too much of its
contact with the walls of the Bastile ; and a man cannot
in such a dress discreetly pay a visit to the daughter of an
ex-minister in disgrace. Search your pockets, and see if
you cannot find a few louis for me."

" Ho, ho !" cried the farmer ; " it seems that you have
left vour purse in the Bastile."

"That is according to the regulations," said Gilbert,
smiling. " All articles of value are deposited in the
registry ofiice."

" And they remain there," said the farmer.

And opening his huge fist, which contained about
twenty louis :

TAKING THE BASTILE. 229

" Take these, doctor," said he.

Gilbert took ten louis.. Some minutes afterward the
hackney-coach was stopped at the door of a ready-made
clothes shop.

It was still the usage in those days.

Gilbert changed his coat, soiled by the walls of the
Bastile, for a very decent black one, such as was worn
by the gentlemen of the Tiers Etat in the Kational
Assembly.

A hair-dresser in his shop, a Savoyard shoe-cleaner in
his cellar, completed the doctor's toilet.

The doctor then ordered the coachman to drive him to
St. Ouen by the exterior boulevards, which they reached
by going behind the walls of the park at Monceaux.

Gilbert alighted at the gate of M. Necker's house, at the
moment when the cathedral clock of Dagobert struck sevea
in the evening.

Around this house, which erewhile was so much sought,
so much frequented, reigned the most profound silence,
disturbed only by the arrival of Gilbert.

And yet there was none of that melancholy appearance
which generally surrounds abandoned country houses — of
that gloominess even generally visible in a mansion, the
master of which had been disgraced.

The gates being closed, the garden walks deserted,
merely announced that the master was absent, but there
was no trace of misfortune or precipitation.

Besides this, one whole portion of the chateau, the east
wing, had still its window-shutters open, and when Gil-
bert was advancing toward this side, a servant, wearing
the livery of M. de Necker, a]iproached the visitor.

The following dialogue then took place through the
iron gratings of the gate.

" Monsieur de Necker is not at home, my friend," said
Gilbert.

" No, the baron left St. Ouen last Saturday, for Brus-

3."

*' And her ladyship, the baroness ?"

"Went with monsieur.""

"But Madame de Stael ?"

" Madame de Stael has remained here ; but I do not
know wliether madame will receive any one ; it is her hour
for walking."

sel^ "

230 - TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Please to point out to me where she is, and announce
to her Doctor Gilbert."

" I will go and inquire whether madame is in the house
or not. Doubtless she will receive you, sir ; but, should
she be taking a walk, my orders are that she is not to be
disturbed."

" Very well ; go quickly, I beg of you."

The servant opened the gate, and Gilbert entered the
grounds.

While relocking the gate, the servant cast an inquisitorial
glance on the vehicle which had brought the doctor, and
on the extraordinary faces of his two traveling companions ;
then he went off, shaking his head like a man wbo feels
somewhat perplexed, but who defies any other intellect to
see clear into a matter where his own had been altogether
puzzled.

Gilbert remained alone, waiting his return.

In about five minutes the servant reajipeared.

" The Baroness de Stael is taking a walk," said he, and
he bowed in order to dismiss Gilbert.

But the doctor was not so easily to be got rid of.

" My friend," said he, " be pleased to'make a slight in-
fraction in your orders, and tell the baroness, \vhen yon
announce me to her, that I am a friend of the Marquis de
Lafayette."

A ionis, slipped into the lackey's hands, comjiletcly re-
moved the scruples he had entertained, but which the
name of the marquis had nearly half dispelled.

" Come in, sir," said the servant.

Gilbert followed him ; but instead of taking him into
the house he led him into the park.

" This is a favorite side of the baroness," said the lackey
to Gilbert, pointing out to him the enti'ance to a si^ecies
of labyrinth ; " will you remain here a moment ?"

Ten minutes afterward he heard a rustling among the
leaves, and a woman between twenty-three and twenty-
four years of age, and of a figure rather noble than graceful,
appeared to the eyes of Gilbert.

She seemed surprised on finding a man who still ap-
peared young, when she had doubtless expected to meet
one advanced in years.

Gilbert was a man of sufficiently remarkable appearance
to strike at first sight so able an observer as Mme. de JStael.

TAKING THE BASTILE. *. 231

The features of few men were formed with such pnre
lines, and these lines had assumed, by the exercise of an
all-powerful will, a character of extraordinary inflexibility.
His fine black eyes, vvliich were always so expressive, had
become somewhat veiled by his literary labors and the suf-
ferings he had undergone, and had lost a portion of that
mobility which is one of the charms of youth.

A wrinkle, which was at once deep and graceful, hol-
lowed out at the corner of his thin lips, that mysterious
cavity in which physiognomists phice the seat of circum-
spection. It appeared that time alone, and a precocious old
age, had given to Gilbert that quality with which nature
had neglected to endow him.

A wide and well-rounded forehead, slightly receding
toward the roots of his fine black hair, which for years
powder had no longer whitened, gave evidence at once of
knowledge and of thought, of study and imagination.
With Gilbert, as with his master, Eousseau, his prominent
eyebrows threw a deep shade over his eyes, and from this
shade glanced forth the luminous point which revealed life.

Gilbert, notwithstanding his unassuming dress, pre-
sented himself before the future authoress of " Corinne '*
with a remarkably dignified and distinguished air ; an air,
of which his well-shaped, tapering white hands, his small
feet, and his finely formed and muscular legs, completed
the noble appearance.

Mme. de Stael devoted some moments to examining
Gilbert.

During this, Gilbert, on his side, had given a stiff sort
of bow, and which slightly recalled the modest civility of
the American Quakers, who grant to woman only the fra-
ternity which protects instead of the respect which smiles.

Then with a rapid glance, he, in his turn, analyzed the
person of the already celebrated young woman, and whose
intelligent and expressive features were altogether devoid
of beauty ; it was the head of an insignificant and frivo-
lous you til, rather than that of a woman, but which sur-
mounted a form of voluptuous luxuriance.

She held in her hand a twig from a pomegranate-tree,
from which, from absence of mind, she was biting off the
blossoms.

" Is it vou, sir," inquired the baroness, ** who are Doctor
Gilbert ?'"

232 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Yes, madame, my name is Gilbert.'*

''You are very young to have acquired so great a
reputation — or, rather, does not that reputation appertain
to your father, or to some relation older than yourself ?"

"I do not know any one of the name of Gilbert but my-
self, madame. And if indeed there is, as you say, some
slight degree of reputation attached to the name, I have
a fair right to claim it."

"You made use of the name of the Marquis de Lafayette
in order to obtain this interview with me, sir ; and, in fact,
the marquis has spoken to us of you — of your inexhaustible
knowledge."

Gilbert bowed.

"A knowledge which is so much the more remarkable,
and so much the more replete Avith interest," continued
the baroness, "since it appears that you are not a mere
ordinary chemist — a practitioner, like so many others,
but that you have sounded all the mysteries of the science
of life."

" I clearly perceive, madame, that the Marquis de La-
fayette must have told you that I am somewhat of a sor-
cerer," replied Gilbert, smiling ; "and if he has told jo\x
so, I know that he has talent enough to prove it to you,
had he wished to do so."

" In fact, sir, he has spoken to us of the marvelous cures
you often performed, whether on the field of battle or in
the American hospitals, upon patients whose lives were
altogether despaired of ; you plunged them, the general
told us, into a factitious death, which so much resembled
death itself that it was difficult to believe it was not real."

*' That factitious death, madame, is the result of a
science almost still unknown, now confided only to the
hands of some few adepts, but which soon will become
common."

" It is mesmerism you are speaking of, is it not ? "
asked Mme. de Stael, with a smile.

" Of mesmerism — yes, that is it."

" Did you take lessons of the master himself ? "

" Alas ! madame, Mesmer himself was only a scholar.
Mesmerism, or, rather, magnetism, was an ancient science
known to the Egyjitians and the Greeks. It was lost in
the ocean of the Middle Ages. Shakespeare divined it in
Maobeth. Urbaiu Graudier found it once more, and died

TAKING THE BASTILE. *" . 233

for having fonnd it. But the great master — my master —

was the Count de Cagliostro ? "

"That mountebank I" cried Mme. de Staeh

** Madame, madame, beware of judging as do contera-

Eoraries, and not as posterity will judge. To that mouute-
ank I owe my knowledge, and perhaps the world will be
indebted to him for its liberty."

" Be it so," replied Mme, de Stael, again smiling ; "I
speak without knowing — you speak with full knowledge of
the subject. It is probable that you are right and I am
wrong. But let ns return to you. Why is it that you
have so long kept yourself at so great a distance from
France ? Why have you not returned to take your place,
your proper station, among the great men of tlie age such
as Lavoisier, Cabanis, Condorcot, Bailly and Louis ?"

At this last name Gilbert blushed, though almost im-
perceptibly.

" I have yet too much to study, madame, to rank my-
self all at once among these great masters."

''But yon have come at last, though at an unpropitious
moment for us ; my father, who would, I feel assured,
have been happy to be of service to you, has been disgraced,
and left this three davs ago."

,Gilbert smiled.

" Baroness," said he, bowing slightly, ''it is now only
six days ago that I was imprisoned in theBastile, pursuant
to an order from Baron Necker."

Mme. de Stael blushed in her turn.

" Really, sir, you have just told me something that
greatly surprises me. You in the Bastile ? "

" Myself, madame."

" What had you done to occasion your imprisonment ?'*

" Those alone who threw me into prison can tell that."

" But you are no longer in prison ? "

"No, madame, because the Bastile no longer exists."

" How can that bo ? Does the Bastile no longer exist ? "
cried Mme. de Stael, feigning astonishment.

" Did you not hear the firing of cannon ?"

" Yes ; but cannons are only cannons, that is all."

** Oh I permit me to tell you, madame, that it is impos-
sible that Madame de Sta6l, the daughter of Monsieur de
Nccker, should not know, at this present time, that the
Bastile has been taken by the people."

284 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"L assure you, sir," replied the baroness, somewhat
confused, " that being unacquainted with any of the events
which have taken i)hice since the departure of my father,
I no longer occupy my time but in deploring his ab-
sence/'

te

Madame ! madame !" said Gilbert, shaking his head,
*' the state messengers are so familiar with the road that
leads to the chateau of St. Ouen, that at least one bearer
of despatches must have arrived during the four hours that
have elapsed since the capitulatioii of the Bastile,"

The baroness saw that it was impossible for her to deny
it without positively lying. She abhorred a falsehood ;
she therefore changed the subject of the conversation.

" And to what lucky event do I owe your visit, sir ? "
asked she.

" I wished to have the honor of speaking to Monsieur
de Necker, madame."

" But do you know that he is no longer in France ? "

''Madame, it appeared to ine so extraordinary that
Monsieur de Xecker should be absent, so impolitic that he
should not have watched the course of events "

<' That "'

" That I relied upon you, I must confess, madame, to
tell me where I could find him."

" You will find him at Brussels, sir."

Gilbert fixed a scrutinizing gaze upon the baroness.

" Thank you, madame," said he, bowing ; " I shall then
set out for Brussels, as I have matters of the highest im-
portance to communicate to him."

Mme. de Staiil appeared to hesitate, then she rejoined :

"Fortunately I know you, sir," said she, *'and that I
know yon to be a man of serious character. 'Tis true, im-
portant things might lose a great deal of their value by
passing through other lips. But what can there be of im-
portance to my father after his disgrace — after what has
taken place ? "

" There is the future, madame. And perhaps I shall
not be altogether without influence over the future. But
all these reflections ai-e to no purpose. The most impor-
tant thing for me and for liiui is that I should see j\ron-
sieur de Necker. Thus, madame, you say that he is at
Brussels ? "

*' Yes, sir."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 235

"It will take me twenty hours to go there. Do you
know what twenty hours are during a revolution, and liow
many important events may take place during twenty
hours ? Oh ! how imprudent it was for Monsieur de
Necker, madame, to place twenty hours between himself
and any event which might take place — between the hand
and the object it desired to reach."

"In truth, sir, you frighten me," said Mme. de Stael,
*' and I begin to think that my father has really been im-
prudent."

" But what would you have, madame ? Things are thus,
are they not ? I have, therefore, merely to make you a
most humble apology for the trouble that I have given you.
Adieu, madame."

But the baroness stopped him.

" I tell you, sir, that you alarm me," she rejoined ; " you
owe me an explanation of all this ; you must tell me some-
thinsj that will reassure me."

"Alas! madame," replied Gilbert, "I have so many
private interests to watch over at this moment that itis
impossible for me to think of those of others ; my life and
honor are at stake, as would be the life and honor of Mon-
sieur de Necker, if he could take advantage of the words
which I shall tell him in the course of twenty hours."

" Sir, allow me to remember something that I have too
long forgotten ; it is that grave subjects ought not to be
discussed in the open air, in a park, within reach of every
ear,"

" Madame," said Gilbert, " I am now at your house, and
permit me to observe, that, consequently, it is you who
have chosen the place where we now are. What do you
wish ? I am entirely at your command."

" I wish you to do me the favor to finish this conver-
sation in my cabinet."

" Ah ! ah ! " said Gilbert to himself, " if I did not fear
to confuse her, I would ask her whether her cabinet is at
Brussels."

But without asking anything more, he contented him-
self with following tlie baroness, who began to walk
quickly toward the chateau.

The same servant who had admitted Gilbert was found
standing in front of the house. Mme. de Staiil made a
sign to him, and opening the doors herself, she led Gilbert

236 TAKING THE BASTILE.

iuto lier cabinet, a charming retreat, more masculine, it
ia true, than feminine, of whicli the second door and the
two windows opened into a small garden, wliich was not
only inaccessible to others, but also beyond the reach of
all strange eyes.

When they had gone in, Mme. de Sta^l closed the door,
and turning towurd Gilbert :

" Sir, in the name of humanity, I call upon you to tell
me the secret which is so important to my father, and
which has brought you to St. Ouen."

"Madame," said Gilbert, "if your father could now
hear me, if he could but know that I am the man who
sent the king the secret memoirs entitled * Of the State of
Ideas and of Progress,' I am sure the Baron de Keeker
would immediately appear, and say to me, ' Doctor Gil-
bert, what do you desire of me ? — speak, I am listen-
ing.'"

Gilbert had hardly pronounced these words when a
secret door, which was concealed by a panel painted by
Vanloo, was noiselessly slid aside, and the Baron de Necker,
■with a smiling countenance, suddenly appeared, standing
at the foot of a small winding staircase, at the top of
which could be perceived the dim rays of a lamp.

Then the Baroness de Stael courtesied to Gilbert, and,
kissing her father's foreheful, left the room by the same
staircase which her father had just descended, and having
closed the panel, she disappeared.

Ngcker advanced toward Gilbert and gave him his
hand, saying :

" Here I am, Monsieur Gilbert ; what do you desire of
me ? speak, I am listening."
, They both seated themselves.

"Monsieur le Baron," said Gilbert, "you have just
heard a secret which has revealed all my idcj^s to yon. It
was I who, four years ago, sent an essay to the king on
the general state of Europe ; it is I who, since then, liave
sent him from the United States the various works he
has received on all the questions of c<uici]iation and in-
ternal administration which have been discussed in France."

" Works of which his majesty," replied M, de Necker
bowing, "has never spoken to me w'ithout expressing a
doep admiration of them, though at the same time a pro-
found terror at their contents."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 237

" Yes, because they told the truth. Was it not because
the truth was then terrible to hear, and having now be-
come a fact, it is still more terrible to witness ? "

" That is unquestionably true, sir," said Necker.

" Did tlie king send these essays to you for perusal ? "
asked Gilbert.

*' Not all of them, sir ; only two ; one on the subject of
the finances — and you were of my opinion with a very few
exceptions ; but I nevertheless felt myself much honored
by it."

''But that is not all ; there was one in which I pre-
dicted all the important events which have taken place."

" Ah ! "

'' Yes."

" And which of them, sir, I pray ? "

'' There were two in particular ; one was that the king
would find himself some day compelled to dismiss you, in
consequence of some engagements he had previously en-
tered into."

'' Did you predict my disgrace to him ? "

''Perfectly."

" That was the first event ; what was the second ?"

" The taking of the Bastile."

" Did you predict the taking of the Bastile ? "

" Monsieur le Baron, tlie Bastile was more than a royal
prison, it was the symbol of tyranny. Liberty has com-
menced its career by destroying the symbol ; the revolution
will do the rest."

" Have you duly considered the serious nature of the
words you have just uttered, sir ? "

"Undoubtedly I have."

" And you are not afraid to express such a theory
oponlv ?"

" Afraid of what ? "

" Afraid lest some misfortune should befall you."

"Monsieur do Necker," said Gilbert, smiling, "after
once having got out of the Bastile, a man has nothing to
fear."

" Have you then come out of the Bastile ?"

" I ought to ask you that question."

"Ask me?"

"You, undoubtedly."

*' And why should you ask me ?**

238 TAKING THE BASTILE.

** Because it was you who caused my imprisonment
there."

** I had you thrown into the Bastile ? "

'' Six days ago ; the date, as you see, is not so very re-
mote that you should not be able to recollect it."

''It is impossible."

" Do you recognize your own signature ? "

And Gilbert showed the ex-minister a leaf of the jail-
book to the Bastile and the leiire dc cachet which was an-
nexed to it.

" Yes," said Necker, " that is doubtless the lettre de
cachet. You know that I signed as few as possible, and
that the smallest number iiossiblc was still four thousand
annually ; besides Avhich, at the moment of my departure,
they made me sign several in blank. Your warrant of
imprisonment, sir, must have been one of the latter."

" Do you mean to imply by this, that I must in no way
attribute my imprisonment to you ?"

" Xo, of course not."

"But, still. Monsieur le Baron," said Gilbert, smiling,
"you understand my motives for being so curious ; it is
absolutely necessary that I sliould know to w'honi I am
indebted for my captivity. Be good enough, therefore, to
tell me."

*' Oh ! there is nothing easier. I have never left my
letters at the ministry, and every evening I brought
them back here. Those of this month are in the drawer
B of tliis chifEonnier ; let us look for the letter G in the
bundle."

Necker opened the drawer, and looked over an enormous
file, which might have contained some five or six hundred
letters.

"I only keep those letters," said the ex-minister,
" which are of such a nature as to cover my responsibility.
Every arrest that I order insures me anotlicr encm3\ I
must therefore have guarded myself against such a con-
tingency. The contrary would surprise me greatly. Let
us see — G — G — , that is the one. Yes, Gilbert — your
arrest was brought about by some one in the queen's house-
hold, my dear sir. Ah — ah ! — in the queen's household —
yes, here is a request for a warrant against a man named
Gilbert. Profession not montiouod ; black eyes, black hair.
The description of your persou follows. Traveling from

TAKING THE BASTILE. 239

Havre to Paris. That is all. Then the Gilbert men-
tioned in the warrant must have been you."

" It was myself. Can you trust me with that letter ?"

** No ; but I can tell you by whom it was signed."

" Please to do so."

" By the Countess de Charny."

**The Countess de Charny," repeated Gilbert. ''I do
not know her. I have done nothing to displease her."

And he raised his head gently, as if endeavoring to
recall to mind the name of the person in question.

" There is, moreover, a small postscript," continued
Necker, ** without any signature, but written in a hand I
know."

Gilbert stooped down and read in the margin of the
letter :

"Do what the Countess de Charnv demands immedi-
atelv."

" It is strange," said Gilbert. " I can readily conceive
why the queen should have signed it, for I mentioned both
her and the Polignacs in my essays. But Madame de
Charny "

*' Do you not know her ?"

** It must be an assumed name. Besides, it is not at all
to be wondered at that the nobilities of Versailles should
be unknown to me. I have been absent from France for
fifteen years, during which time I only came back twice ;
and I retuiuied after my second visit to it, some four years
ago. Who is this Countess do Charny ?"

'' The friend, the bosom companion of the queen ; the
much beloved wife of the Count de Charny, a woman who
is both beautiful and virtuous — a prodigy, in short."

" Well, then, I do not know this prodigy."

" If such be the case, doctor, be persuaded of this, that
you are the victim of some political intrigue. Have you
never spoken of Count Cagliostro ? "

"Yes."

" Were you acquainted with him ?"

" He was my friend. He was even more than my friend
— he was my master, my saviour."

" Well, then, either Austria or the Holy See must have
demanded your incarceration. You have published some
pamphlets, have you not ? "

240 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' Alas ! jes."

" That IS it precisely. All their petty revenges point
toward the queeu, like the maguetic needle which points
toward the pole — the iron toward the loadstone. They
have been conspiring against you — they have had you
followed. Tlie queen has ordered Madame de Cliarnj to
sign the letter, in order to prevent any suspicion ; and now
all the mystery is cleared up."

Gilbert reflected for a moment. This moment of re-
flection reminded him of the box which had been stolen
from Billot's house ; and with whicli neither the queen,
nor Austria, nor tlie Holy See had any connection. This
recollection led his mind to coiisidcr the matter in its right
point of view.

*' No/' said he, " it is not that ; it cannot be that. But
it matters not. Let us talk of something else."

" Of what ? "

''Of you."

*'•' Of me ? What can you have to say of me ? "

" Only what you know, as well as any one else. It is
that, before three days have elapsed, you will be reinstated
in your ministerial capacity ; and then you may govern
France as despotically as you please."

'* Do you think so ? " said Necker, smiling.

"And you think so, too, since yon are not at Brussels."

"Well, then," exclaimed Necker, '''what will be the
result ? — for it is the result I wish to come to."

" Here it is. Yon are beloved by the French. You
will be soon adored by them. The queen was already tired
of seeing you beloved. The king will grow tired of seeing
you adored. They will acquire popularity at your ex-
pense, and you will not suffer it. Tiien you will become
unpopular in your turn. The people, my dear Monsieur
de Necker, is like a starving lion, which licks only the
hand that supplies it with food, be it whose hand it may."

"After that?"

"After that you will again be lost in oblivion."

"I— fall into oblivion ?"

"Alas! yes."

** And what will cause me to be forgotten ? "

** The events of the times."

" }>\y word of honor for it you speak like a prophet."

" It is my misfortune to be one to a certain extent."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 2tH

'* Let us hear now what will liappen ? "

" Oh, it is uot difficult to predict what will happen, for
that which is to liappen is already in embryo in the
Assembly. A party will arise that is slumbering at this
moment. I am mistaken ; it is not slumbering, but it
hides itself. This party has for its chief a principle, and
its weapon is an idea."

" I understand you — you mean the Orleanist party ?"

''Xo. I should have said of that one that its chief was
a man and its weapon popularity. I speak to you of a
party whose name has not even yet been pronounced. Of
the republican party."

** Of the republican party ? Ah! that is too ridiculous."

" Do you not believe in its existence ? "

" A chimera.''

*' Yes, a chimera, with a mouth of fire that will devour
you all."

*' Well, then, I shall become a republican. lam one
already."

" A republican from Geneva, certainly."

" But it seems to me that a republican is a republican."

" There is your mistake, my good baron. Our repub-
licans do not resemble the republicans of other countries.
Our republicans will first have to devour all privileges,
then the nobility, and after that the monarchy. You may
start with our republicans, but they will reach the goal
without you, for you will not desire to follow them so far.
No, Monsieur de Necker, you are mistaken, you are not a
republican."

*' Oh, if you understand it in that sense — no ; I love the
king."

" And I, too," said Gilbert ; " and everybody at this
moment loves him as we do. If I were to say this to a
mind of less caliber than yours, I should be hooted and
laughed at ; but believe what I tell you, Monsieur de
Necker."

*' I would readily do so, indeed, if there were any proba-
bility of such an event ; but "

" Do you know any of the secret societies ? "

*' I have heard them much spoken of."

** Do you believe in their existence ? "

** T believe in their existence, but I do uot believe they
are vory extensively disseminated."

11 — Dumas— Vol. IX

242 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' Are you affiliated to any one of them ?'*

''No."

** Do you belong even to a masonic lodge ? "

"No."

'nVell, then, Monsieur de Necker, I am a member of
them all."

" Are you affiliated to some of these societies ? "

** Yes, to all of them. Beware, Monsieur de Necker ;
they form an immense net that surrounds every throne.
It is an invisible dagger that threatens every monarchy.
We form a brotherhood of about three millions of men,
disseminated tliroughout all classes of society. We have
friends among the people, among the citizens, among the
nobility, among princes, among sovereigns themselves.
Take care, Monsieur de Necker ; the prince with whom
you might be irritated is perliaps an affiliated member.
The valet who humbles himself in your presence may be
an affiliated member. Your life is not yours — your for-
tune is not your own — your honor even is not yours. All
this is directed by an invisible jiowcr, which you cannot
combat, for you do not know it, and wliich may crush
you, because it knows you. Well, these three millions of
men, do you see, Avho have already made the American
republic, these three millions of men will try to form a
French republic ; then they will try to make a European
republic."

" But," said Necker, '' their republic of the United
States does not alarm me much, and I willingly accept
such a form of government."

** Yes, but between America and ourselves there is a
deep gulf. America is a new country, without prejudices,
without aristocratic privileges, without monarcliy. It has
a fertile soil, productive land, and virgin forests. Ameri-
ca, which is situated between a sea which serves as an
outlet for its commerce, and an immense solitude wliich
is a source of wealth to its population, while France ! —
just consider howmucli it would be necessary to destroy
lu France before France can resemble America."

" But, in fiue, what do yon intend to prove by this ?"

" I mean to point out to you the path into which wo
are inevitably forced. But I would endeavor to advance
into it without causing any shock, by placing the king at
the head of the movement."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 24:3

*' As a standard ? "

**No, but as a shield."

*' A shield ! " observed Xecker, smiling. *' You know
bnt little of the king if 3-011 wish to make him play such a
part."

" Pardon me — I know him well. Oli ! gracions Heaven !
I know full well he is a man similar to a thousand others
whom I have seen at the head of small districts in Amer-
ica; he is a good man without majesty, incapable of resist-
ance, without originality of mind. But what would you
have ? Were it only for his sacred title, he would still be
a rampart against those men of whom I was speaking to
you a short time ago ; and however weak the rampart
may be, we like it better than no defense at all."

"' I remember in our wars with the savage tribes of
North America," continued Gilbert, "I remember having
passed whole nights behind a clump of bulrushes, while
the enemy was on the opposite bank of the river, and was
firing upon us.

*' A bulrush is certainly no great defense. Still, I must
frankly acknoAvledge to you. Monsieur de Necker, that my
heart beat more freely behind those large green tubes,
•which were cut through by the bullets as if they were
thread-papers, than it did in the open field. Well, then,
the king is my rush. It allows me to see the enemy, and
it prevents the enemy from seeing me. That is the reason
why I am a republican at Xew York or at Philadelphia,
but a royalist in France. There our dictator was named
Washington. Here, God knows what he Avill be named ;
either dagger or scaffold."

" You seem to view things in colors of blood, doctor."

" You would have seen them in the same light as my-
self, if you had been, as I was, on the Place de Greve
to-day."

" Yes, that is true ; I was told that a massacre had
taken place there."

" There is something magnificent, do you sec, in the
people — but it is when well disposed. Oh, human tem-
pests ! " exclaimed Gilbert, " how much do you surpass in
fury all th^ cempests of the skies."

Necker became thoughtful.

" Why cau I not have you near me, doctor ? " said he ;
'■'you would be a useful counselor in time of need."

244 TAXING THE BASTILE.

'* Near you. Monsieur de Necker ? I should not be so
useful to you, and so useful to France, as where I wish to

go ?"

*' And where do you wish to go ? "

" Listen to me, sir. Near the throne itself there is a
great enemy of the throne ; near the king there is a great
enemy of the king ; it is the queen. Poor woman ! who
forgets that she is the daughter of Maria Theresa, or,
rather, who only remembers it in a vainglorious point of
view ; she thinks to save the king, and ruins more than
the king, for she destroys the monarchy. Well, it is
necessary that we who love the king, we who love France,
should unite together to neutralize her power and to
annihilate her influence,"

*' Weil, then, do as I said, sir : remain with me, assist
me."

'* If I were to remain near yon, we should have but one
sphere for action ; you would be me, and I should be you.
We must separate our forces, sir, and then they will acquire
a double weight."

" And, with all that, what can we accomplish ? "

*' We may retard the catastrophe, perhaps, but certainly
we cannot prevent it, although I can answer for the as-
sistance of a powerful auxiliary, the Marquis de Lafayette."

"Is not Lafayette a republican ?"

" As far as a Lafayette can be a republican. If we are
absolutely to submit to the level of equality, believe me,
we had better choose the level of nobility. I like equality
that elevates, and not that Avhich lowers, mankind."

'' And you can answer for Lafayette ? "

** Yes, so long as we shall require nothing of him but
honor, courage, and devotedness."

"Well, then, speak ; tell me what is it you desire ?"

** A letter of introduction to His Majesty Louis XVI."

** A man of your worth does not need a letter of in-
troduction ; he may present himself without it."

" No ; it suits me that I should be your creature ; it is
part of my project to be presented by you."

" And what is your ambition ? "

"To become one of the king's physicians-in-ordinary."

"Oh, there is nothing more easy. But tlu; queen ?"

" When I have once seen the king, tliat will be my own
affair."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 246

" But if she should persecute yon ?"

*"'Then I will make the kiug assert his will.*'

** The king- assert his will ? You will be more than a
man if you accomplish that."

'^ He who can control the physical part of a man must
be a great simpleton indeed, if he does not some day
succeed in controlling the mind."

" But do you not think that having been imprisoned in
the Bastile is but a sorry reconimendation lor you, who
wish to become the king's physician ? "
• " On the contrary, it is the very best. ITave I not
been, according to you, persecuted for the crime of
philosophy ?"

" I fear such is the case."

*'Theu the king will vindicate his reputation — the king
will become popular by talcing as his physician a pupil of
Rousseau — a partisan of the new doctrines — a prisoner
who has left the Bastile, in short. The first time you see
him, make him duly weigh the advantage of such a

course."

" You are always in the right ; but when once you are
employed by the king, can I rely upon you ?"

" Entirely, so long as you shall follow the line of politics
which we shall adopt ? "

" What will you promise me ? "

" To warn you of the precise moment Mdien you must
retreat. "

Necker looked at Gilbert for a moment ; then, in a
more thoughtful tone :

'•' Indeed ; that is the greatest service which a devoted
friend can render to a minister, for it is the last one.

And he seated himself at his table to write to the king.

While he was tluis occupied, Gilbert wv.s again examin-
ing the letter demanding his arrest ; he several times re-
peated :

" The Countess de Charny ? who can she be ? "

"Here, sir," said Necker, a few moments after, while
he presented Gilbert with the letter he had just written.

Gilbert took the letter and read it.

It contained the following lines :

" Sire, — Your majesty needs the services of a trust-
worthy person, with whom he may converse upon his affairs.

246 TAKING THE BASTILE.

My last gift, my last service in leaving the king, is the
present I make him of Doctor Gilbert.

"It will be sufficient for me to tell yonr majesty that
Doctor Gilbert is not only one of the most skilful physi-
cians living, but also the autlior of the works entitled
'Administrations and Politics,' which made so lively au
impression upon the mind of your majesty.

*' At your majesty's feet,

" Barox de Xeckek."

Necker did not date the letter, and gave it to Dr. Gil-
bert, closed only with an ordinary seal.

*' And now/'' added he, '' I am again at Brussels, am I
not ? "

"Yes, certainly, and more so than ever. To-morrow
morning, at all events, you shall hear from me."

The baron struck against the panel in a peculiar manner.
Mme. de Stael again appeared ; only this time, in addition
to her branch of pomegranate, she held one of Dr. Gilbert's
paini)hlets in her hands.

She showed him the title of it with a sort of flattering
coquetry.

Gilbert took leave of M, de Necker, and kissed the hand
of the baroness, who accompanied him to the door of the
cabinet.

And he returned to his coach, where he found Pitou
and Billot sleeping upon the front seat, the coachman
sleeping on his box, and the horses sleeping upon their
exhausted limbs.

CHAPTER XXII.

The interview between Gilbert, Mme. de Stael, and M.
de Xecker had lasted about an hour and a half. Gilbert
re-entered Paris at a quarter past nine o'clock, drove
straight to the post-house, ordered horses and a post-
chaise, and while Billot and Pitou were gone to rest thorn-
selves, after their fatigue, in a small hotel in the Hue
Thiroux, where Billot generally put up ■when he came to
Paris, Gilbert set off at a gallop on the road to Versailles.

It was late, but that mattered little to Gilbert. To men
of his nature, activity is u necessity. Perhaps his jouriiey

TAKING THE BASTILE. 247

might be a fruitless one. Bnt he even preferred a useless
journey to remaining motionless. For nervous tempera-
ments, uncertainty is a greater torment than the most
frightful reality.

He arrived at Versailles at half past ten ; in ordinary
times, every one would have been in bed and wrapped in
the profoundest slumber. ]3ut that night no eye was
closed at Versailles. Tiiey had felt the counter-shock of
the terrible concussion with which Paris was still trembling.

The French Guards, the body-guards, the Swiss drawn
up in platoons, and grouped near the openings of all the
principal streets, were conversing among themselves or
with those of the citizens whose fidelity to the monarchy
inspired them with confidence.

For Versailles has, at all times, been a royalist city.
Religious respect for the monarchy, if not for the monarch,
is ingrafted in the hearts of its inhabitants, as if it were a
quality of its soil. Having always lived near kings, and
fostered by their bounty, beneath the shade of their won-
ders— having always inhaled the intoxicating perfume of
the fleur-de-lis, and seen the brilliant gold of their gar-
ments, and the smiles upon their august lips, the inhab-
itants of Versailles, for whom kings have built a city of
marble and porphyry, feel almost kings themselves ; and
even at the present day, even now, when moss is growing
round the marble, and grass is springing up between the
slabs of the pavement, now that gold has almost disap-
peared from the wainscoting, and that the shady walks of
the parks are more solitary than a graveyard, Versailles
must either belie its origin, or must consider itself as a
fragment of the fallen monarchy, and no longer feeling
the pride of power and wealth, must at least retain the
poetical associations of regret, and the sovereign charms
of melancholy, ^riius, as we have already stated, all Ver-
sailles, in the night between the 14th and 15th July, 1789,
was confusedly agitated, anxious to ascertain how the
King of France would reply to the insult offered to his
throne, and the deadly wound inflicted on his power.

By his answer to 'M. de Dreux Breze, Mirabeau had
struck the very face of royalty.

By the taking of the Bastile, the people had struck it to
the heart.

Stiiii to narrow-minded and short-sighted persons, the

248 TAKING THE BASTILE.

question seemed easy of solution. lu the eyes of military
men, in particular, who ^^ere accustomed to see nothing
more than tlie triumph or defeat of hrute force in the re-
sult of events, it was merely necessary to march upon
Paris. Thirty thousand men and twenty pieces of cannon
would soon reduce to a nonentity the conceit and the
victorious fury of the Parisians.

Never had monarchy so great a number of advisers, for
everybody uttered his opinions loudly and publicly.

The most moderate said :

'• It is a very simple matter."

This form of language, it will be observed, is nearly
always applied, with us, to the most difficult circumstances.

"It is a very simple matter,'' said they. "Let them
begin by obtaining from the National Assembly a sanction
which it will not refuse. Its attitude has, for some time,
been reassuring to every one; it will not countenance vio-
lence committed by the lower classes, any more than abuses
perpetrated by the npper.

'' The Assembly will plainly declare that insurrection
is a crime ; that citizens who have representatives to ex-
plain their griefs to the king, and a king to do them jus-
tice, are wrong to have recourse to arms and to shed
blood.

"Being once armed with this declaration, which could
certainly be obtained from the Assembly, the king could
not avoid chastising Paris, like a good parent, that is to
say, severely.

"And then the tempest would be allayed, and the
monarchy would regain the first of its rights. The people
would return to their duty, which is obedience, and things
would go on in tlie usual way."

It was thus that the people in general were settling this
great question, upon the squares and boulevards.

But before the Place d'Armes, and in tiie vicinity of
the barracks, they treated the subject very differently.

There could be seen men altogether unknown in the
neigliborhood, men with intelligent countenances and
sinister looks, disseminating mysterious advice to all around
them, exaggerating the news which was already sufficiently
serious, and propagating, almost publicly, tiie seditious
ideas which during two months had agitated Paris and
excited the suburbs.

TAKING THE BASTILE, £49

Round these men groups were forming, some gloomy
and hostile, some excited, composed of people whom these
orators were reminding of their misery, their sufferings,
the brutal disdain of the monarchy for the privations of
the people. An orator said to them :

" During eight centuries that the jieople have struggled,
what have they obtained ? Nothing. No social rights,
no political rights. What is their fate ? That of the
farmer's cow, from whom its calf is taken to be led to the
shambles, its milk to be sold at the market, its meat to be
taken to the slaughter-house, its skin to be dried at the
tannery. In short, pressed by want, the monarchy has
yielded, it has made an appeal to the states ; but now that
the states are assembled, what does the monarchy ? Since
the day of their convocation, it weighs heavily upon them.
If the National Assembly is formed, it is against the will
of the monarchy. Well, then, since our brethren of Paris
have just given us such vigorous assistance, let us urge the
National Assembly onward. Each step which it takes in
the political arena is a victory for us ; it is the extension
of our field, it is the increase of our fortune, it is the con-
secration of our rights. Forward ! forward ! citizens !
The Bastile is but the outwork of tyranny. The Bastile
is taken — the citadel is before us ! "

In remote corners other meetings were formed, and other
woi'ds pronounced. Those who pronounced them were
men evidently belonging to a superior class, who had
sought in the costume of the vulgar a disguise with which
their white hands and distinguished accent contrasted
straTigely.

''People," exclaimed these men, *'in truth you are de-
ceived on both sides ; some ask you to retrace your steps,
while others urge you onward. Some speak" to you of
political rights, of social rights ; but are you happier for
having been permitted to vote through the medium of
your delegates ? Are you any the richer since you have
been represented ? Have you been less hungry, now that
the National Assembly makes decrees ? No. Leave poli-
tics, then, to those who can read. It is not a written
Ehrase or maxim that you need. It is bread, and again,
read ; it is the well-being of your children, the tranquil-
lity and security of your wives. Who will give you all tliat?
A king, firm iu character, young in mind, and of a gen-

250 TAKING THE BASTILE.

erous heart. Tliat king is not Louis XVI. — Louis XV"L,
^vho is ruled by his wife, the irou-hearted Austrian. It is
— searcii carefully round the throne ; search there for him
who cau render France hajipy, and whom the queen natu-
rally detests, and that because he throws a shadow over
the picture, because he loves the French, and is beloved
by them."

Thus did public opinion manifest itself at Versailles ;
thus was civil war fomented everywhere.

Gilbert observed several of these groups, and then, hav-
ing perceived the state of the public mind, he walked
straight to the palace, which was guarded b}' numerous
military posts, to protect it against whom no one knew.

Notwithstanding all these precautions, Gilbert, witiiout
the slightest difficulty, crossed the first courtyard, and
reached the vestibule without having been asked by any
one where he was going.

"When he had arrived at the Hall of the Q^^il de Boeuf,
he was stopped by one of the body-guards. Gilbert drew
from his pocket the letter of M. de Xecker, Avhose signa-
ture he showed.

The guard cast his eye over it. The instructions he had
received were very strict ; and as the strictest instructions
are precisely those which most need to be interpreted, the
guard said to Gilbert :

*' The order, sir, to allow no one to visit the king is
positive ; but as the case of a person sent by Monsieur de
Necker was evidently not foreseen, and as, according to all
probability, you are the bearer of important information
to his majesty, go in. I will take the responsibility ujion
myself."

Gilbert entered.

The king was not in his apartments, but in the council-
room. He was just receiving a deputation from the Xa-
tional Guard of Paris, which had come to request tlie dis-
missal of tlie troops, the formation of a guard of citizens,
and hia presence in the capital.

Louis had listened coldly ; then he l)ad replied that the
situation of affairs required investigation ; and that, moro-
over, he was about to deliberate on the subject with his
council.

And, accordingly, ho deliberated.

During this time the deputies were waiting in the gal-

TAKING THE BASTILE. 251

lery ; and through the groimd-glass windows of the doora
they could observe the shadows of the royal councilors and
the threatening attitude which they assumed.

By the study of this species of phantasmagoria, they
could foresee that the answer would be unfavorable.

In fact, the king contented himself with saying that lie
would appoint some officers for the national militia, and
would order the troops at the Champs de Mars to fall back.

As to his presence in Paris, he would only show this
favor when the rebellious city had completely submitted.

The deputation begged, insisted, and conjured. The
king replied that his heart was grieved, but that he could
do nothing more.

And satisfied with this momentary triumph and this
manifestation of a power which he no longer possessed,
the king returned to his apartment.

He there found Gilbert. The guard was standing near
him.

'' What is wanted of me ?" asked the king.

The body-guard approached him, and while he was apolo-
gizing to the king for having disobeyed his orders, Gilbert,
who for maiiy years had not seen the king, was silently
examining the man whom God had given to France as her
pilot during the most violent tempest the country had
ever experienced.

That stout, short body, in which there was neither elas-
ticity nor majesty ; that inexpressive and low-formed brow ;
that pallid youthfulness contending against premature old
age ; the unequal struggle between a powerful physical
organization and a mediocre intelligence, to which the
haughtiness of rank alone gave a fitting importance — all
this, to the pliysiognomist who had studied Lavater, to the
magnctizer who had read the future with Balsamo, to the
philosopher who had dreamed with Tean Jacques, to
the traveler, in short, who had passed all the human races
in review — all these implied degeneracy, dwindling, im-
potence, and ruin.

Gilbert was, therefore, struck dumb, not from a feeling
of respect, but from grief, while contemplating this mourn-
ful spectacle.

Tlie king advanced toward him.

** It is yon," said he, " who bring me a letter from Mon-
sieur de Necker."

352 TAKING THE BASTILE.

""Yes, sire."

*' Ah ! " cried he, as if he had doubted it, " give it to

me quickly."

And he pronounced tliese words in the tone of a drown-
ing man, wlio cries out, *'a rope ! "

Gilbert presented the letter to the i^ing.

Louis immediately grasped it, read it hurriedly, then,
with a sign wliich was not altogether wanting in a sort of
nobleness of manner :

** Leave us, Monsieur de Varicourt,"said he to the body-
guard.

Gilbert remained alone with the king. The room was
lighted by a single lamp. It might have been thought
the king had diminished the quantity of light, in order that
no one should perceive on his wearied rather than careworn
brow the anxious thoughts which crowded there.

*' Sir," said he, fastening upon Gilbert a clearer and
more penetrating gaze than the latter would have thought
him capable of, '' sir, is it true that you are the author of
the memoirs which liave so much struck me ? "

*' Yes, sire."

*•' AVhat is your ago ? "

"Thirty-two years, sire; but study and misfortunes
double age. Treat me as if I were an old man.'"'

" "Why did you omit so long to present yourself to
me?"

" Because, sire, I did not wish to tell your majesty aloud
what / could write to him more freely and more easily."

Louis XVI. reflected.

" Had you no other reason ? " said he, suspiciously.

" ^o, sire."

*' But still, either I am mistaken, or there were some
peculiar circumstances which ought to luive convinced you
of my kindly feeling toward you."

" Your majesty intends to speak of that sort of rendez-
vous which I hud the temerity to give the king, when,
after my flrst memoir, I begged him, five years ago, to
place a light near his window, at eight o'clock in the
evening, to indicate that he had read my work."

"And ?" said the king, with an air of satisfaction.

" And on the day and at the hour appointed the light
was, in fact, placed where I had asked you to place it."

" And afterward ? "

TAKING THE BASTILE. 253

** Afterward, I saw it lifted up and set down again three
times."

*'And then ?"

" After that I read the following words in the * Ga-
zette : '

" ' He whom the light has called three times may pre-
sent himself to him who has raised it three times, when
he will be compensated.'"

" Those are, in fact, the very words of the advertise-
ment," said the king.

'* And there is the advertisement itself," said Gilbert,
drawing from his pocket the number of the *' Gazette" in
which the advertisement he had just alluded to had been
published five years previously.

*'Well, very well," said the king; *'I long expected
you. You arrive at a moment I had quite ceased to ex-
pect you. You are welcome ; for you come, like good
soldiers, at the moment of the battle."

Then, looking once more attentively at Gilbert :

*' Do you know, sir," said he to him, *' that it is not an
ordinary thing for a king to await the arrival of a person
to whom he has said, * Come to receive your reward,' and
that that person should abstain from coming ? "

Gilbert smiled.

" Come, now, tell me," said Louis XVI., " why did you
not come ? "

" Because I deserved no reward, sire."

**For what reason ?"

*'Born a Frenchman, loving my country, anxious for
its prosperity, confounding my individuality with tliat of
thirty millions of men, ray fellow -citizens, I labored for
myself while laboring for them. A man is not worthy of
reward when he labors for his own interest."

" That is a paradox, sir ; you had another reason."

Gilbert made no reply.

** Speak, sir, I desire it."

*' Perhaps, sire, you have guessed rightly."

*' Is not that it ?"" asked the king, in an anxious tone.
** You found the position a very serious one, and you ab-
stained."

*' For fear of one still more serious. Yes, sire, your
Jnajesty has divined the truth."

** I like frankness," said the king, who could not con-

254 TAKING THE BASTILE.

ceal his agitation ; for he was of a timid nature, and
blushed easily.

"Then," continued Louis XVI., "^ you predicted the
king's fall to him, and 3'ou feared to be placed too near
the ruins."

" Xo, sire, since it is just at the moment that danger is
most imminent that I come to face the danger."

** Yes, yes, you have just left Xecker, and ycu speak
like him. The danger ! the danger ! Without doul)t, it
is dangerous at this moment to approach me. And where
is Necker ?''

^' Quite ready, I believe, to obey the orders of your maj-
esty."

" So much the better ; I shall want him," said the king,
with a sigh. " In politics we must not be headstrong.
We think to do good and we do wrong. We even do good,
and some capricious event mars our projects ; and though
the plans laid were in reality good, we are accused of hav-
ing been mistaken."

The king sighed again. Gilbert came to his assistance.

*' Sire," said he, "your majesty reasons admirably ; but
•what is desirable at tlie present moment is to see into the
future more clearly than has been done hitherto."

The king raised his head, and his inexpressive eyebrows
slightly frow7ied.

"Sire, forgive me," said Gilbert, "lam a physician.
When the danger is imminent, I speak briefly."

" Do you, then, attach much importance to the riot of
to-day ? " _

"Sire, it is not a riot — it is a revolution."

"And you wish me to make terms with rebels and as-
sassins ? For, in fine, they have taken the Bastilo by
force ; it is an act of rebellion ; they have killed ^[onsieur
do Launay, Monsieur de Losme, and Monsieur de Fles-
seiles ; it is murder."

"I wish you to distinguish more correctly, sire. Those
who took the Bastilo are heroes ; tliose wlio assassinated
Messieurs de Flesselles, De Losme, and De Launay are
murderers."

The king colored slightly, and almost immediately this
color disappeared, his lips become pale, and a few drops of
perspiration trickled down his forehead.

" You are right, sire. You are a physician indeed, or a

TAKING THE BASTILE. 255

snrgeon, rather, for you cut to the quick. But let us re-
turn to the object of our iuterview. You are Doctor Gil-
bert, are you not ? or, at least, it is with this mime that
your memoirs are signed."

*' Sire, it does me great honor that your majesty has so
good a memory, although, taking it all in all, I have no
great reason to be proud of my name."

*'How is that?"

" My name must, indeed, have been pronounced before
your majesty, and that not long ago."

'* I do not understand you.''

" Six days ago I was arrested and thrown into the
Bastile. Now, I have heard it said that no arrest of any
importance was ever made without the king being aware
of the fact."

*'' You in the Bastile ! " said the king, opening his eyes
widely.

" Here is the registration of my imprisonment, sire.
Put in prison, as I have the honor to tell your majesty, six
days ago, by order of tlie king, I came out of it at three
o'clock to-day, by the grace of the people."

'•' To-day ? "

** Yes, sire. Did your majesty hear the cannon ?"

'' Most undoubtedly."

"Well, then, the cannon opened the gates for me."

*' Ah ! " murmured the king, '' I would willingly say
that I am pleased at this event, had not the cannon of
this morning been fired at the Bastile and at the monarchy
at the same time."

'' Oh, sire, do not make a prison the symbol of a prin-
ciple ; say, on the contrary, sire, that you rejoice that the
Bastile is taken ; for henceforward injustice will not be
committed in the king's name without his cognizance — in-
justice simihir to that of which I have just been the victim."

'' But surely, sir, your arrest must have had a cause."

'' None that I know of, sire ; I was arrested on my re-
turn to France, and imprisoned, that is all."

" Eeally, sir," said Louis XVL, kindly, " is there not
some egotism on your part, in speaking to me tlius of
yourself, when I so mucli need to have my own position
spoken of ? "

" Sire, all I require is, that your majesty will answer me
one single question."

256 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"' What is it ? "

*' Was or was not your majesty concerned in my arrest ?'*

'*' I was not even aware of your return to France."

" I rejoice at this answer, sire ; I shall then be enabled
to declare openly that when your majesty is supposed to do
wrong, you are nearly always calumniated ; and to those
who doubt it, I can cite myself as an example."

The king smiled.

"As a physician," said he, "you pour balm into the
wound."

"Oh, sire, I shall pour in the balm abundantly ; and, if
you desire it, I will cure the wound, that I will answer for."

" I most assuredly desire it."

" You must desire it very firmly, sire."

" I do desire it firmly."

" Before going any further, sire," said Gilbert, " read
that line written in the margin of my jail-book entry."

" What line ?" asked the king, in an anxious tone.

Gilbert presented the page to the king. The king read :
** By request of the queen."

The king frowned.

" Of the queen ! " said he. " Can you have incurred
her displeasure ? "

" Sire, I am certain her majesty knows me still less
than did your majesty."

" But still, you must have committed some fault ; a
man is not sent to the Bastile for nothing."

" It would seem so, since I have just come out of it."

" But Monsieur Necker has sent you to me, and the
warrant of imprisonment was signed by him."

"It was so, undoubtedly."

" Then explain yourself more clearly. Keview ^our
past life. See if you do not find some circumstance m it
which you had yourself forgotten."

" Review my past life ! Yes, sire ; I shall do it, and
aloud ; do not fear, it will not occupy much time. I have
labored without intermission since I attained tlie age of
sixteen ; the pupil of Jean Jacques, the companion of
Balsamo, the friend of Lafayette and of Washington, I
have never had cause to reproach myself, since the day
that I loft France, for a single fault, nor even an error.
When acquired science permitted me to attend the wounded
or the sick, I always thought myself responsible to God

TAKING THE BASTILE. 257

for every one of my thoughts, and every action. Since
God has given me the care of human beings as a surgeon,
I have shed blood for the sake of Immanity, while ready
to give my own to soothe or to save my patient ; as a
physician, I have always been a consoler, and sometimes
a benefactor. Fifteen years have thus jDassed away. God
blessed my efforts ; I saw return to life the greater part of
the afflicted, who all kissed my hands. Those who died
had been condemned by the will of God. , No, I repeat it,
sire, since the day when I left France, and that was fifteen
years ago, I have done nothing with which I can reproach
myself."

" You have associated with the innovators of America,
and your writings have propagated their principles."

" Yes, sire ; and I forgot this claim to the gratitude of
kings and men."

The king was silent.

** Sire," continued Gilbert, " now my life is known to
you ; I have neither offended nor wounded any one —
neither a beggar nor a queeii — and I come to ask your
majesty why I have been punished."

" I shall speak to the queen, Monsieur Gilbert ; but do
you think the letlre de cachet comes directly from the
qaeen ? "

** I do not say that, sire ; I even think the queen merely
recommended it."

*' Ah ! you see," cried Louis, quite joyfully.

"Yes; but you are aware, sire, that what a queen
recommends, she commands."

*' At whose request was the left re de cachet granted ? "

" Yes, sire," said Gilbert. " Look at it."

And he presented him the entry in the jail-book.

"The Countess de Charny !" exclaimed the king.
" How, it is she who caused your arrest ? But Avhat can
you have done to this poor Charny ? "

" I did not even know that lady byname this morning,
sire."

Louis passed his hand over his brow.

" Charny," murmured he, " Charny — sweetness, virtue,
chastity itself ! "

"You will see, sire," said Gilbert, laughing, "that I
was imprisoned in the Bastile at the request of three
theological virtues,"

258 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Oh ! I will clear this up at once," said the king.

And he went to the fireplace and pulled the bell.

An usher appeared.

" See if the Countess de Charny is with the queen," said
Louis.

'"■Sire," said the usher, "the countess has just this in-
stant crossed the gallery ; she is about stej^ping into her
coach. "

"I?un after her," said Louis, eagerly, ''and request
her to come to my cabinet on an affair of importance."

Then turning toward Gilbert :

'' Is that what you desire, sir ?" said he.

" Yes, sire," answered Gilbert ; "and I return v. thou-
sand thanks to your majesty."

^ CHAPTER XXIIL

Gilbert, on hearing the order to send for Mnie. de
Charny, had retired into the recess of a window.

As to the king, he was walking up and down in the
room called the (Eil de Bceuf, preoccupied at times with
public affairs, at others with the pertinacity of this Gil-
bert, b}' whom, in spite of himself^, he felt strangely influ-
enced, and at a moment when nothing ought to have
interested him hut the affairs of Paris.

Suddenly the door of the cabinet was thrown open, the

V"^ usher announced the Countess de Charny, and (iilbert,

through the closed curtains, could perceive a woman

whose flowing and silken robes grazed the half-opened

door.

This lady was dressed, according to the fashion of the
times, in a deshabille of gray silk, striped with a variety
of colors, with a petticoat of the same stuff, and a sort of
shawl, whicli, after being crossed over the chest, was fas-
tened behind her waist, and showed to a great advantage
the beauties of a full and woll-doveloped bosom. A small
bonnet, coquettishly fixed on the summit of a high head-
dress, liigh-hecled shoes, which showed the exquisite sliape
of a beautiful instep, a small cane twirled by the gloved
fingers of a slender aud delicate hand, with tapering and
perfectly aristocratic fingers, such was the person so anx-
iously expected by Gilbert.

TAKING THE BASTILE. - 259

The king stepped forward to meet her.

"You were just going out, countess, I was told."

" In truth, sire," replied tlie countess, " I was on tho
point of stepping into my carriage, when I received your
majesty's order."

On hearing this firm-toned voice, the ears of Gilbert
were suddenly assailed as with a rushing sound. The
blood instantly suffused his cheeks, and a thousand shud-
ders appeared to thrill through his whole system.

Despite himself, he made a step from the curtain, behind
which he had secreted himself.

'' She," stammered he — " she — Andree "

*' Madame," continued the king, who, as well as the
countess, had not observed the emotion of Gilbert, who
was hidden in the shade, " I requested you to visit me for
the purpose of obtaining some information from you."

" I am ready to comply with your majesty's wishes."

The king leaned in the direction of Gilbert, as if to warn
him.

The latter, perceiving that the moment to show himself
had not yet arrived, gradually withdrew himself again
behind the curtain.

'* Madame," said the king, " it is now eight or ten days
since a warrant of imprisonment was requested of Mon-
sieur de Necker "

Gilbert, through the almost imperceptible opening be-
tween the curtains, fastened his gaze upon Andree. The
young woman was pale, feverish, and anxious, and ap-
peared borne down by the weight of a secret prepossession,
for which even she herself could not account.

"You hear me, do you not, countess?" asked Louis
XVI., seeing that Mme. de Charny hesitated before an-
swering.

"Yes, sire."

" AVell, do you understand me, and can you answer my
question ? "

** I am endeavoring to remember," said Andree.

" Permit me to assist your memory, countess. The
warrant of imprisonment was demanded by you, and the
demand was countersigned by the queen."

The countess, instead of answering, appeared to aban-
don herself more and more to that feverish abstractiou
which seemed to lead her beyond the limits of real life.

260 TAKING THE BASTILE.

'' But answer nie, then, madame," said the king, who
began to grow im))atient.

"It is true," said she, trembling, '*it is true. I wrote
the letter, and her majesty the queen countersigned it."

"Tlien," asked Louis, "tell me the crime which liad
been committed by the person against whom such a docu-
ment was required."

"Sire," said Andree, " I cannot tell you what crime he
liad committed ; but what I can tell you is, that the crime
was great."

"Oh ! can you not confide that even to me ?"

"No, sire."

"Xot to the king ?"

" N'o. I liope your majesty will forgive me ; but I can-
not."

"Then you shall tell it to him in person, madame,'*
said tlie king ; " for what you have refused to King Louis
XVL you cannot refuse to Doctor Gilbert."

"To Doctor Gilbert!" exclaimed Andree. "Great
God ! where is he, then ?"

The king stepped aside to allow Gilbert to advance ; the
curtains were thrown apart, and the doctor appeared,
almost as pale as Andree.

" Here he is, madame," said he.

At the sight of Gilbert the countess staggered. Her
limbs shook beneath her. She fell backward, as does a
person who is about to faint, and only maintained a stand-
ing position with the assistance of an armcliair, on wliicli
she leaned in the sorrowful, motionless, and almost uncon-
scious attitude of Eurydice at the moment when the ser-
pent's venom reaches her heart.

" Madame," said Gilbert, bowing to lier with mock
politeness, "allow me to repeat the question wliich has
just been put to you by his majesty."

The lips of Andree could be seen to move, but no sound
issued from them.

"Wliat offense had I committed, madame, that an
order from you sliould have caused me to be tiirown into
a loatlisome dungeon ? "

On hearing this voice, Andree bounded as if she had
felt tlie tearing asunder of the fibers of her heart.

Then, on a sudd<Mi, casting upon Gilbert an icy look
like that of a Beri)ent :

TAKING THE BASTILE. 261

**Me, sir/* said she ; "I do not know yon."

But while she pronounced these words, Gilbert, on his
side, had looked at her with such intentness, he had
loaded the brightness of his gaze with so much invincible
audacity, that the countess cast down her eyes, completely
overpowered.

" Countess,'' said the king, in a mild tone of reproach,
*' see where the abuse of a signature may lead you. Here
is a gentleman whom you do not know, and you yourself
confess it ; a man who is a great practitioner, a profound
physician, a man who can be reproached for nothing."

Audree raised her head, and almost petrified Gilbert by
her contemptuous look.

He, however, remained calm and proud.

" I say, then," continued the king, " that having no
cause for complaint against Monsieur Gilbert, that by thus
persecuting him instead of another, it is on the head of an
innocent man that punishment has fallen. Countess, this
is wrong."

'' Sire," said Andree.

''All !" interrupted the king, who already trembled for
fear of disobliging the favorite of his wife, " I know that
you are kind-hearted, and that if you have i')unished some
one through hatred, tliat person must have deserved it ;
but you see that it will be necessary, in future, to avoid
the recurrence of such mistakes."

Then turning toward Gilbert :

'' You see, doctor, it is the fault of the times, rather
than that of men. We are born in corruption, and we
die in it ; but we will endeavor, at least, to ameliorate the
condition of posterity, and you will, I trust, assist me iu
this work, Doctor Gilbert."

And Louis ceased speaking, thinking he had said
enough to satisfy both parties.

Poor king ! had he pronounced those words before the
National Assembly, not only would he have been ap-
plauded, but, moreover, he would have seen them repro-
duced in all the court journals.

But the two unrelenting enemies present at this interview
appreciated but little his conciliating pliilosopliy.

" Witli your majesty's permission," said Gilbert, " I will
request the countess to repeat what she has already stated,
namely, that she does not know me."

262 TAKING THE BASTILE.

** Countess," said the king, '' will you do what the
doctor requests of you ? *'

'•' I do uot know Doctor Gilbert,'' repeated Audree in a
firm voice.

" But you know another Gilbert, my iiamesake ; the
Gilbert whose crime has been visited on me."

" Oh !" said Andree, '' I know that person, and I con-
sider him an infamous wretch."

" Sire, it would not become me to interrogate the count-
ess," said Gilbert ; *' but deign to ask her of what that in-
famous man has been guilty."

"Countess, you cannot refuse acceding to so just a
request."

"What he has done ?" said Andree, "Doubtless the
queen knew of what crime he had been guilty, since with
her own hand she authorized the letter by means of which
I applied for his arrest."

" But," said the king, *' it is not quite sufficient that
the queen should be convinced, it is necessary that I, too,
should be convinced. The queen is the queen, but I am
the king."

*•' Well, then, sire, the Gilbert mentioned in the warrant
is a man who, sixteen years ago, committed a most fear-
ful crime."

" Will your majesty ask the countess how old that man
is at the present day ?"

The king repeated the question,

" From thirty to thirty-two," said Andree.

*' Sire,'* rejoined Gilbert, " if the crime Mas committed
sixteen years ago, it was not committed by a man, but by
a child, and if during these sixteen years, the man has de-
plored the crime committed by the child, does not that
man deserve some little leniency ?"

"But, sir," asked the king, "you then know the
Gilbert then in question ?"

"I know him, sire," said Gilbert.

" And has he committed no other fault except this one
of his early youth ? "

" I do not know that since the day on which he com-
mitted— I will not say that fault, sire, for I am less indul-
gent than you, but that crime — I do not know that any
one in this world has aught to reproach him with."

** No ; unless it is having dijiped his pen in poison.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 263

and having composed the most odions libels," cried
Andree.

" Sire, please to ask the conntess," said Gilbert, '' if the
real object of tlie arrest of this Gilbert was not to afford
every facility to his enemies, or, rather, to his enemy, to
obtain possession of certain papers, which might have com-
promised a great lady, a lady of the court."

Andree trembled from head to foot.

" Monsieur," faltered she.

" Countess, what is this casket ? " asked the king, who
had perceived the trembling and the pallor of the coun-
tess.

'' Ah I madame," cried Gilbert, feeling that he was
gaining the mastery, " no tergiversation — no subterfuge.
There have been misstatements enough on both sides. I
am the Gilbert who committed the crime — I am the Gilbert
of the libels — I am the Gilbert of the casket. You — you
are the great lady — the lady of the court. I call upon the
king to be our judge ; accept him, and we will tell to this
Judge — to the king — to God — we will tell all that has oc-
curred between us ; and the king shall decide while we
await the judgment of God."

" Say what you will, sir," rejoined the countess, ''but
I can say nothing ; I do not know you."

''And you know nothing of this casket, neither ?"

The countess convulsively closed her liands, and bit
her pale lips till they bled.

"No," said she ; "I know no more of it than I do of
you."

But the effort she made to pronounce these words was
such that her body trembled as does a statue on its ped-
estal during an earthquake.

"Madame, beware," said Gilbert. "I am, as yoiT can
hardly have forgotten, the pupil of a man called Joseph
Balsamo. The power which he possessed over you he has
transmitted to me. For the last time, will you answer the
question I put to you : My casket ? "

" No ! " cried the countess, a prey to the most indescrib-
able agitation, and making a movement to rush out of
the room.

" Well, then," said Gilbert, in his turn becoming pale,
and raising his threatening arm, " well, then, thou iron
nature, thou heart of adamant, bend, burst, and break

264 TAKING THE BASTILE.

beiieatli the irresistible pressure of uiy will. Wilt thon not
speak, Aiidree ?"

" No, no 1" cried the countess. *' Uolp me, sire — help
me!"

•* Thou Jialt speak I " cried Gilbert ; *'eind no one, were
he the king, or even God himself, can withdraw thee from
my power. Thou shalt speak, then ; thou shalt reveal thy
whole soul to the witness of this solemn scene ; and all
that is contained in the recesses of thy conscience — all
that which God alone can read in the depths of the deepest
souls, you shall know, sire, from the lips of her who
refuses to reveal them. Sleep, Madame the Countess,
sleep and speak. I will it ! "

Hardly Avere the words pronounced, when the conntess
stopped short in the midst of a suppressed cry, stretched
forth her arms, and seeking support for her trembling
limbs, fell, as if imploring a refuge, into the arms of the
king, who, trembling himself, seated her upon an arm-
chair.

*' Oh !'* said Louis XVI., *'I have heard of things of
this nature, but I never before witnessed anything to equal
it. Is it not to a magnetic sleep that she has just suc-
cumbed, sir ? "

" Yes, sire ; take the hand of the countess, and ask her
why she caused me to be arrested," said Gilbert, as if the
right to command belonged to him alone.

Louis XVI., quite thunder-struck by this marvelous
scene, took two steps backward to convince himself that
he was not himself asleep, and that what was taking place
before him was not a dream ; then, like a mathematician
who is interested in some new solution, he approached
nearer to the countess, whose hand he took in his.

" Let us see, countess," said he ; " it was then you who
caused the arrest of Doctor Gilbert ?"

Still, although asleep, the countess made one last effort,
snatched her hand from that of the king, and gathering
up all her strength :

" No,'** cried she ; " I will not speak ! "

The king looked at Gilbert, as if to ask him which of
the two would overcome the other — his will or that of
Audree.

Gilbert smiled.

** You will speak I " said he.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 265

And, his eyes fixed upou the sleeping Androe, he ad-
vanced a step toward the armchair.

Andree shuddered.

" Will you not speak ? " added he, taking a second step,
which diminished the distance that separated him from tlie
countess.

Every muscle of Andree's frame became rigid in a su-
preme effort of reaction.

" Ah! you will not speak, then ?" said he, taking a
third stride which placed him at the side of Andree, over
whose head he placed his outstretched hand, ** ah ! you
will not speak ? "

Andree was writhing in the most fearful convulsions.

''But take care, take care!" cried Louis XVI., you
will kill her!"

" Fear nothing, sire; it is with the soul alone that I
have to contend ; the soul is struggling, but it will yield.'*

Then lowering his hand :

* ' Speak ! " said he.

Andree extended her arms, and made an effort to
breathe, as if she had been under the pressure of a pneu-
matic mac.iine.

"Speak!" repeated Gilbert, lowering his hand still
more.

All the muscles of the young woman's body seemed
about to burst. A fringe of froth appeared upon her lips,
and a commencement of epilepsy convulsed her from head
to foot.

Doctor 1 doctor ! " said the king, " take care ! "

But he, without noticing the king, lowered his hand a
third time, and touching the top of the countess's head
with the palm of that hand :

** Speak," said he ; " it is my will."

Andr6e, on feeling the touch of that hand, heaved a
sigh — her arms fell motionless to her side — her head, which
had been thrown backward, fell forward upon her breast
— and a copious flood of tears oozed through her closed
eyelids.

*' My God ! my God ! my God \" faltered she.

" Invoke the Lord — be it so ; he who operates in the
name of God does not fear God."

" Oh ! " said the countess, ** how I hate you I'*

** Abhor me, if you will, but speak."

12 — Dumas — Vol. IX.

266 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"Sire, sire," exclaimed Aiidree, "tell him that he con-
sumes me, that he devours me, that he kills me ! "

"Speak !"said Gilbert.

Then he made a sign to the king that lie miglit in-
terrogate her.

" So that, countess," said the king, again taking her
hand, " he whom you wished to arrest, and whom j'ou
have caused to be arrested, was really the doctor him-
self ? "

"Yes."

"And there was no mistake, no misunderstanding ?"

" None."

"AtkI the casket ? " said the king.

" "Well," articulated the countess, slowly, " could I
allow that casket to remain in his possession ? "

Gilbert and the king exchanged glances.

"And did you take it from him ?" said Louis XVI.

"I had it taken from him."

" Oh ! oh ! tell me how that was managed, countess,"
said the king, forgetful of all ceremony, and kneeling
down before Andree. "You had it taken ?"

"Yes."

" When, and by what means ? "

"I ascertained that this Gilbert, who, during sixteen
years, has already made two voyages to France, was about to
make a third one, and this last time with the intention of
remaining there."

" But the casket ? " asked the king.

" I ascertained by means of the lieutenant of police.
Monsieur de Crosne, that during one of liis journeys he
had bought some lands in the neighborhood of Villers-
Cotterets — that the farmer who tenanted his lands enjoyed
his whole confidence ; I suspected that the casket might
be left at his residence."

" What made you think so ? "

" I went to see Mesmer. I made him put me to sleep,
and I saw the casket while in that state."

"It was "

" In a large clothcs-])ress on the ground floor, hidden
under some linen."

"This is wonderful!" said the king. "After that,
tell me what took place."

" 1 returned to the house of Monsieur de Croaue, who.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 267

having been recomraeuded to do so by the queen, gave me
one of his most skilful agents."

" What was the name of this agent ? " asked Gilbert.

Andree shuddered as if a hot iron had touched her.

"I ask you his name ?" repeated Gilbert.

Andree endeavored to resist.

** His name ? I will know it ! ' said the doctor.

" Wolfsfoot," she replied.

'' After that ?" asked the king.

" Well, then, yesterday morning this man got possession
of tlie casket. That is all."

'' No, it is not all," said Gilbert. " You must now tell
the king where the casket is at this moment."

''Oh !" said Louis XVI., " vou ask too much of her."

''No, sire."

" But by this Wolfsfoot, by means of Monsieur de Crosne,
one might ascertain "

" Oh, we shall know everything quicker, and much
better, through the countess."

Andree by a convulsive movement, the object of which
was, doubtless, to prevent the words from escaping her
lips, clinchtdher teeth with such violence as almost to
break them.

The king pointed out this nervous convulsion to the
doctor.

Gilbert smiled.

lie touched with his thumb and forefinger the lower
part of the face of Andree, whose muscles were relaxed at
the same moment.

" In tlie first place, countess, tell the king clearly that
this casket belonged to Doctor Gilbert."

" Yes, yes, it belongs to him," said the sleeping woman,
angrily.

"And where is it at tliis moment?" asked Gilbert.
" Make haste ! the king hus not time to wait."

Andree hesitated for a moment.

"At Wolfsfoot's house," said she.

Gilbert observed the hesitation, although it was scarcely
perceptible.

"You are telling a falsehood !" said he, "or, rather,
you are endeavoring to tell one. Where is the casket ? I
insist on knowing."

At my houseat Versailles," said Andree, bursting into

t(

208 TAKING THE BASTILE.

tears, with a nervous trembling which shook her whole
frame, " at my house, where Wolfsfoot is waiting for me,
as we had previously agreed to meet at eleven o'clock to-
night."

Midnight was heard to strike.

*' Is he still waiting there ?"

"Yes."

" In which room is he ?"

*'They have just shown him into the drawing-room."

*' What place does he occupy in the drawing-room ? "

"' He is standing, and leaning against the chimneypiece."

*' And the casket ?"

*' It is on the table before him. Oh ! "

" What is the matter ? "

" Let us hasten to get him out of the house. Monsieur
de Chaniy, who was not to return till to-morrow, will
come back to-night, on account of the events that have
taken place. I see him ; he is at Sevres. Make him go
away, so that the count may not find him in the house."

" Your majesty hears that. In what part of Versailles
does Madame de Charny reside ?"

" Where do you reside, countess ?"

*' On the Boulevard de la Keine, sire."

''Very well/'

" Sire, your majesty has heard everything. That casket
belongs to me. Does the king order it to be returned to
me ? "

*' Immediately, sir."

And the king, having drawn a screen before Mme. de
Charny, which prevented her from being seen, called the
officer on duty, and gave him an order in a low voice.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A STRANGE preoccupation for a king whose subjects
were undermining his throne. The inquisitivencss of the
erudite mnn applied to a physical ])hcnomcnon, while the
most important })olitical phenomenon was taking phice
that France had ever known — that is to say, the transfor-
mation of a monarchy into a democracy. Tliis sight, we
say, of a king forgetting himself during tlio most terrible
period of a tempest, would certainly have caused the great

TAKING THE BASTILE. 269

minds of the time to smile, bent as they had been during
three months on the solution of their problem.

While riot was raging in all its fury without, Louis,
forgetting the terrible events of the day — the taking of
the Bastile, the assassination of Flesselles, De Launay, and
De Losme, the disposition of the Xational Assembly to re-
volt against the king — Louis was concentrating his mind on
this examination of a theory ; and the revelations of this
strange scene absorbed him no less than the most vital
interests of his government.

And thus, as soon as he had given the order which we
have mentioned to the captain of his guards, he returned
to Gilbert, who was removing from the countess the excess
of fluid with which he had charged her, in order that her
slumber might be more tranquil than under the effects of
this convulsive somnambulism.

For an instant the respiration of the countess became
calm and easy as that of a sleeping child. Then Gilbert,
with a single motion of liis hand, reopened her eyes, and
put her into a state of ecstasy.

It was then that one could see the extraordinary beauty
of Andree, in all its splendor. Being completely freed
from all earthly agitations, the blood, which had for an
instant rushed to her face, and which momentarily had
colored her cheeks, redescended to her heart, whose pul-
sations had recovered their natural state. Her face had
again become pale, but of that beautiful pallor of the
women of the East ; her eyes, opened rather more than
usual, were raised toward heaven, and left the pupils float-
ing, as it were, in the pearl-like whiteness of their eyeballs ;
the nose, slightly expanded, appeared to inhale a purer
atmosphere ; and her lips, which had preserved all their
vermilion, although her cheeks had lost a little of theirs,
were slightly separated, and discovered a row of pearls of
which the sweet moistness increased the brilliancy.

The head was gently thrown backward with an inexpress-
ible grace almost angelic. It might have been said that
this fixed look, increasing its scope of vision by its in-
tensity, penetrated to the foot of the throne of God.

The king gazed at her as if dazzled. Gilbert turned
away his head and sighed. He could not resist the desire
to give Andree this degree of superhuman beauty ; and
now, like Pygmalion — more unhappy even than Pygmalion,

270 TAKING THE BASTILE.

for he knew tlie insensibility of tlie beautiful statue — he
trembled at the sight of his own production.

He made a sign without even turning his head toward
Andree, and her eyes closed instantly.

The king desired Gilbert to explain to him that mar-
velous state, in which the soul separates itself from the
body, and soars, free, happy, and divine, above all ter-
restrial miseries.

Gilbert, like all men of truly superior genius, could pro-
nounce the words so much dreaded by mediocrity, "I do
not know." He confessed his ignorance to the king. He
had produced a phenomenon which he could not explain.
The fact itself existed, but the explanation of the fact
could not be given.

" Doctor," said the king, on hearing this avowal of Gil-
bert, *' this is another of those secrets which nature re-
serves for the learned men of another generation, and
which will be studied thoroughly, like so many other mys-
steries which were thought insoluble. We call them mys-
steries : our fathers would have called them sorcery 'or
witchcraft."

"Yes, sire," answered Gilbert, smiling; ''and I should
have had the honor to be burned on the Place de Gr^ve
for the greater glory of a religion which was not under-
stood by wise men without learning and priests devoid of
faith."

*'And under whom did you study this science?" re-
joined the king. '* Was it with Mesmer ?"

** Oh, sire," said Gilbert, smiling, *' I had seen the
most astonishing phenomena of the science ten years be-
fore tlie name of Mesmer was pronounced in France."

" Tell me, now : this Mesmer, who has revolutionized
all France, was he, in your opinion, a charlatan ? It
seems to me that you operate much more simjily than he.
I have heard his experiments spoken of, and also those of
Deslon and Puysegur. You know all that has been said
on the subject, whetlier idle stories or positive truths."

" I have carefully observed all tliese discussions, sire."

*' Well, then, what do you think of the famous vat or
tub?"

" I hope your majesty will excuse me if I answer doubt»
ingly to all you ask mo with regard to the magnetic art.
Magnetism has not yet become an art."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 271

" All ! **

*' Bat it assuredly is a power, a terrific power, since it
annii'iilates the will, since it isolates the soul from the
body, and places the body of the somnambnlist in the
power of the maguetizer, while the former does not retain
the power, nor even the desire, to defend itself. As for
me, sire, I have seen strange phenomena produced, I have
produced many myself. Well, I nevertheless still doubt."

" How ! you still doubt ? You perform miracles, and
yet you are in doubt ?"

" No, I do not doubt — I do not doubt. At this mo-
ment even, I have a proof before my eyes of an extraordi-
nary and incomprehensible power. But when that proof
has disappeared, when I am at home alone in my library,
face to face with all that human science has written dur-
ing three thousand years, when science says no, when the
mind says no, when reason says no, I doubt."

" And did your master also doubt, doctor ?"

*' Perhaps he did, but he was less sincere than I. He
did not express his doubt."

*' Was it Deslon ? Was it Puysegur ? "

"No, sire, no. My master was a man far superior to
all the men you have named. I have seen him perform
tlie most marvelous things, especially with regard to
wounds. No science was unknown to him. He had im-
pregnated his mind with Egyptian theories. He had pene-
trated the arcana of ancient Assyrian civilization. He was a
profound scholar, a formidable philosopher, having a great
knowledge of human life, combined with a persevering
will."

" Have I ever known him ? " asked the king.

Gilbert hesitated a moment.

"I ask you whether I ever knew him ?"

*' Yes, sire. "

" And you call him ? "

"Sire," said Gilbert, " to pronounce that name before
the king would, perhaps, render me liable to his displeas-
ure. Now, especially at tliis moment, when the majority
of Frenclimen are depreciating all royal authority, I
would not throw a shade on the respect we all owe your
majesty. "

"Name that man boldly, Doctor Gilbert, and be jicr-
guaded that I, too, have my philosoj^hy — a philosophy of

272 TAKING THE BASTILE.

sufficiently good material to enable me to smile at all the
insults of the present and all the threats of the future."
Gilbert still continued to hesitate.

The king apprpached him.

**Sir," said he to Gilbert, laughing, ** call him Satan,
if you will, I shall find a shield to protect me from him—
the one which your dogmatizers do not possess— cue that
they never will possess — one which I alone, perhaps, in
this century, possess, and bear without feeling shame —
religion,"

'* Your majesty believes as St. Louis did. It is true,"
said Gilbert.

" And in that lies all my strength, I confess, doctor. I
like science ; I adore the results of materialism ; I am a
mathematician, as you well know ; you know that the sum-
total of an addition or an algebraical formula fills my
heart with joy ; but when I meet people who carry algebra
to atheism, I have in reserve my profound, inexhaustible,
and eternal faith — a faith which places me a degree above
and a degree below them — above them in good, and beneath
tliem in evil. You see, then, doctor, that I am a man to
whom everything may be said, a king who can hear any-
thing."

*' Sire," said Gilbert, with a sort of admiration. *' I
thank your majesty for what you have just said to me ; for
yon have almost honored me with the confidence of a
friend."

" Oh ! I wish," the timid Louis hastened to exclaim, ** I
wish all Europe could hear me speak thus. If Frenchmen
were to read in my heart all the energy of feeling, the
tenderness which it contains, I think they would oppose me
less."

The last portion of the king's sentence, which showed
that the king was irritated by the attack the royal preroga-
tive had been subjected to, lowered Louis XVI. in the
estimation of Gilbert.

He hastened to say, without attempting to spare the
king's feelings :

" Sire, since you insist upon it, my master was the Count
de Cagliostro."

*' Oh ! " cried Louis, coloring. ** that empiric ! "

" That empiric ! — yes, sire. Your majopty is doubtless
aware that the word you have just pronounced is one of the

TAKING THE BASTILE. 273

noblest used in science. Empiric means ' the man who
attempts' — the practitioner, the profound thinker, tlie
man, in short, who is incessantly attempting after dis-
coveries, does all that God permits men to do that is glo-
rious and beiutifnl. Let but a man attempt during his
whole life, and his life will be well occupied."

"Ah, sir, this Cagliostro whom you defend was a great
enemy of kings."

Gilbert recollected the affair of the necklace.

"Is it not rather the enemy of queens your majesty in-
tended to say ? "

Louis shuddered at this sharp home-thrust.

" Yes," said he, " he conducted himself in all the af-
fairs of Prince Louis de Rohan in a manner which was
more than equivocal."

" Sire, in that, as in other circumstances, Cagliostro
carried out the human mission ; he sought his own ends.
In science, in morals, in politics, there is neither good nor
evil ; there are only stated phenomena or accomplished
facts. Nevertheless, I will not defend him, sire. I repeat
it, the man may often have merited blame ; perhaps some
day this very blame may be considered as praise ; posterity
reconsiders the judgments of men. But I did not study
Tinder the man, sire, but under the philosopher, under the
great physician."

"Well, well," said the king, who still felt the double
wound his pride and heart had received — " well ; but we
are forgetting the Countess de Charuy, and perhaps she
is suffering."

" I will wake her up, sire, if your majesty desires it ; but
I had wished that the casket might arrive here during her
sleep."

"Why ?"

" To spare her a too harsh lesson."

" Here is somebody coming at this moment," said the
king. "Wait."

In fact, the king's order had been punctually obeyed.
The casket found at the hotel of the Countess de Cluirny,
in the possession of the agent Wolfsfoot, was brought into
the royal cabinet, under the very eyes of the countess,
who did not see it.

The king made a sign of satisfaction to the oflRcer who
brought the casket. The oliicer then left the room.

274 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Well ! " said Louis XVI.

"Well, tlieu, sire, that is, iu fact, the very casket which
had been taken away from me."

"• Opeu it,'' said the king.

*' Sire, I am willing to do so, if your majesty desire it ;
but I have only to forewarn your majesty of one thing."

" What is that ? "

'•' Sire, as I told your majesty, this box contains only
papers which are easily read, and might be taken, and on
which depends the honor of a woman."

•■'And that woman is the countess ?"

" Yes, sire. That honor will not be endangered while
this matter is confined to the knowledge of your majesty.
Open it, sire," said Gilbert, approaching the casket, and
presenting the key of it to the king.

*'Sir," replied Louis XVI. coldly, ''take away this
box ; it belongs to you."

" Thank you, sire ; but what are we to do with the
countess ? "

"Oh, do uot, above all, wake her up here. I Avisli to
avoid all recriminations and painful scenes."

"Sire," said Gilbert, "the countess will only awake :'iU
the place where you wish her to be carried."

" Well, let her be taken to the queen's apartment,
then."

Louis rang the bell. An officer entered the room.

" Captain," said he, " the Countess de Charny has just
fainted here, on hearing the news from Paris. Have her
taken to the queen's room."

" How long will it take to carry her there ? " asked Gil-
bert of the king.

" About ten minutes," replied the latter.

Gilbert laid his hand on the countess.

"You will awake in three quarters of an hour," said
he.

Two soldiers entered, the order having been given by
the officer, who carried her away in an armchair.

"Now, Monsieur Gilbert, what more do you desire ?"
asked the king.

"Sire, I desire a favor which would draw me nearer to
your majesty, and procure me, at the same time, an op-
portunity to be useful to you."

The king endeavored to divine what he could mean.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 275

''Explain yourself," said he.

** I should like to be one of the physicians-in-ordinary
to the king," replied Gilbert ; "I should be in the way of
no one ; it is a post of honor, but rather a confidential
than a brilliant one."

''Granted/' said the king. ''Adieu, Monsieur Gilbert.
Ah ! by the by, a thousand compliments to Necker.
Adieu."

Then, as he was leaving the room :

" My supper ! " cried Louis, whom no event, however
important, could induce to forget his supper.

CHAPTER XXV.

While tlie king was learning to oppose the revolution
philosophically, by going through a course of occult
sciences, the queen, who was a much more substantial and
profound philosopher, had gathered around her, in her
large cabinet, all those who were called her faithful ad-
herents, doubtless because there had been no opportunity
afforded to any one of them either to prove or to try his
fidelity.

In the queen's circle, also, the events of that terrible
day had been related in all their details.

She had even been the first to be informed of them, for
knowing her to be undaunted, they had not feared to
inform her of the danger.

Around the queen were assembled generals, courtiers,
priests, and ladies. Near the doors, and behind the
tapestries which hung before them, might be seen groups
of young officers, full of courage and ardor, who saw in all
revolts a long-desired opportunity to evince their prowess
in presence of the fair sex, as in a tournament.

All of these, whether intimately connected with the
court, or devoted servants of the monarchy, had listened
with attention to the news from Paris, whicli had been
related by M. deLambesq, who, having been present during
those events, had hastened to Versailles with his regiment,
still covered with the sand of the Tuileries, in order to state
the real position of affairs to the affrighted courtiers, and

276 TAKING THE BASTILE.

thus afford them consolation ; for many of them, although
the misfortune was sufficiently serious, had greatly ex-
aggerated it in their apprehension.

Tiie queen was seated at a table. It was no longer the
gentle and lovely bride, the guardian angel of France
whom we saw appear at the opening of this story, crossing
the northern frontier, an olive-branch in her hand. It
was no longer even that gracious and beautiful princess
whom we saw one evening entering with the Princess de
Lamballe into the mysterious dwelling of !Mesmer, and
seating herself, laughing and incredulous, near the
symbolical vat, of which she had come to ask a revelation
of the future.

Xo ! It was the haughty and resolute queen, with
frowning brow and scornful lip ; it was a woman Avhose
heart had allowed a portion of its love to escape from it,
to harbor, instead of that sweet and vivifying element,
the first drops of gall, which, by constantly filtering into
it, was finally to reach her blood.

It was, in short, the woman represented by the third

{)ortrait in the gallery of Versailles ; that is to say, no
onger Marie Antoinette, no longer the Queen of France,
but the woman who was now designated only by the name
of the Austrian.

Behind her, in the shade, lay a motionless young woman,
her head reclining on the cushion of a sofa, and her hand
upon her forehead.

This was Mme. de Polignac.

Perceiving M. de Lambesq, the queen made one of those
gestures indicative of unbounded joy, which mean :

" At last, we shall know all."

M. de Lambesq bowed, with a sign that asked jiardoKa
at the same time for his soiled boots, his dusty coat, and
his sword, which, having been bent in his fall, could not
be forced into its scabbard.

'MVell, Monsieur de Lambesq," said the queen, "have
you just arrived from Paris ? ''

"Yes, your majesty."

" What are the people doing ? ''

"They are killing and burning."

" Throu£;h maddening rage or hatred ? "

" Xo ; from slicer ferocity."

The quecu reflected, as if she had felt disposed to be of

TAKING THE BASTILE. 277

his opinion with regard to the people. Then, shaking
her head :

" No, prince," said she, *' the people are not ferocious ;
at least, not without a reason. Do not conceal anything
from me. Is it madness ? is it hatred ? '*

'* Well, I think it is hatred carried to madness,
madame.'*

*' Hatred of whom ? Ah I I see you are hesitating
again, prince ; take care, if yon relate events in that
manner, instead of applying to you as I do, I shall send
one of my outriders to Paris ; he will require one hour to
go there, one to acquire information, one to return, and,
in the course of three hours, this man will tell me every-
thing that has happened, as accurately and as simply as
one of Homer's heralds."

M. de Dreux Breze stepped forward with a smile upon
his lips.

" But, madame," said he, *' of what consequence to yoa
is the hatred of the people ? That can in no way concern
you. The people may hate all, excepting you."

The queen did not even rebuke thijs piece of flattery.

''Come, come, prince," said she to M. de Lambesq,
** speak out."

" Well, then, madame, it is true the people are acted
upon by hatred."

''Hatred of me?"

" Of everything that rules."

"Well said ! that is the truth, I feel it ! " exclaimed
the queen, resolutely.

*' I am a soldier, your majesty," said the prince.

" Well, well, speak to us, then, as a soldier. Let us see
what must be done."

"Nothing, madame."

" How — nothing ! " cried the queen, taking advantage
of the murmurs occasioned by these words among the
wearers of embroidered coats and golden-sheathed swords
of her company ; "nothing ! Yon, a prince of Lorraine,
you can speak thus to the Queen of France at a moment
when the people, according to your own confession, are
killing and burning, and you can coolly say there is nothing
to be done."

A second murmur, but this time of approbation, followed
the words of Marie Antoinette.

278 TAKING THE BASTILE.

She turned round, fixed her gaze on all the circle
which environed her, and among all those fiery eyes sought
those which darted forth the brightest flames, as if she
could read a greater proof of fidelity in them.

" Xothing ! " contniued the prince, *' because, in allow-
ing the Parisian to become calm — and he will become so —
for he is only warlike when he is exasperated. Why give
him the honors of a struggle, and risk the chances of a
battle ? Let us keep quiet, and in three days there will uo
longer be a question of a commotion in Paris."

''But the Bastile, sir?"

" The Bastile ! Its doors will be closed, and those who
took it will be taken, that is all."

8ome laughter was heard among the before silent group.

The queen continued :

" Take care, prince ; you are now reassuring me too
much." And thoughtfully, her chin resting on the palm
of her hand, she advanced toward Mme de Polignac, who,
pale and sad, seemed absorbed in thought.

The countess had listened to all the news with visible
fear ; she only smiled when the queen stopped opposite to
her and smiled ; although this smile was pale and color-
less as a fading flower.

" Well, countess," asked the queen, '' what do you say
to all this ? "

" Alas ! nothing," she replied.

*' How, nothing ? "

''Xo."

And she shook her head with an indescribable sigh of
despair.

" Come, come," said the queen, in a very low voice, and
stooping to the ear of the countess, *'our friend Diana is
terrified."

Then she said, aloud :

" But where is Madame de Charny, the intrepid woman ?
We need her assistance to reassure us, I think."

" The countess was about to go out, when she was sum-
moned to the king's apartments."

"Ah ! the king's," absently answered Marie Antoinette.

And only then did the queen perceive the strange silence
which porvaded all around her.

The truth was, these wonderful and incredible events,
uccouuta of which had successively reached Versailles like

TAKING THE BASTILE. £79

repeated shocks, had prostrated the firmest hearts, perhaps
more by astonishment than fear.

The queen understood that it was necessary to revive all
these drooping spirits.

" Can no one advise me ?" said she. '' Be it so ; I will
advise myself."

They all drew near to Marie Antoinette.

*' The jjeople," said she, "are not bad at heart, they
are only misled. They hate us because we are unknown
to them ; let us become better friends."

" To punish them, then," said a voice ; " for they have
doubted their masters, and that is a crime.''

The queen looked in the direction from which the voice
proceeded, and recognized M. de Bezenval.

" Oh, it is you. Monsieur le Baron," said she ; *'do you
come to give us your good counsel ? "

*' The advice is already given," said Bezenval, bowing,

" Be it so," said the queen ; '' the king will punish only
as a tender father."

*' ' Who loves well, chastises well,' " said the baron.

Then, turning toward M. de Lambesq :

*' Are you not of my opinion, prince ? The people have
committed several murders "

" A7hich they unfortunately call retaliation," said a
sweet voice, at the souud of which the queen turned in
her seat.

" You are right, princess ; but it is precisely in that
that their error consists, my dear Lamballe ; we shall be
indulgent."

**But," replied the princess, in her mild manner,
'* before asking whether we must punish, I think we
ought to ask whether we can conquer."

A general cry burst forth from those who were present,
a cry of protestation against the truth which had just been
spoken by those noble lips.

** Conquer ! and where are the Swiss ? " said one.

*' And the Germans ?" said another.

*' And the body-guards ?" cried a third.

** Can doubts be entertained about the army and the
nobility ?" exclaimed a young man wearing the uniform
of a lieutenant in the hussars of Bcrchingy. ** Have we,
then, deserved such a reproach ? Do but consider,
smUaine, that no later than to-morrow, if he chose, the

280 TAKING THE BASTILE.

king could assemble forty thousand men, throw these
forty thousand men into Paris, and destroy the city. Ro-
meinber that forty thousand faithful troops are worth half
a million of revolted Parisians."

The young man who had just spoken these words had,
without doubt, a good many other similar reasons to
advance, but he stopped short on seeing the eyes of the
queen fixed upon him. He liad spoken from the center of
a group of officers, and his zeal had carried him further
than was consistent with etiquette and his rank.

He checked himself accordingly, as we have already said,
feeling quite ashamed at the impression his Avords had
made.

But it was too late ; the queen had already been struck
with his enthusiastic manner.

'' You understand the present condition of affairs, sir ? '*
said she, kindly.

" Yes, your majesty," said the young man, blushing ;
" I was at the Champs Elysees."

" Then, do not fear to speak. Come nearer, sir."

The young man stepped forward, blushing, from the
group, which opened to let him j^ass, and advanced toward
the queen.

At the same moment the Prince de Lambescj and M. de
Bezenval retired a stej) or two, as if they considered it be-
neath their dignity to attend this sort of council.

The queen did not pay, or did not appear to pay, any
attention to this movement.

" You say, then, sir, that the king has forty thousand
men ? " asked she.

"Yes, your majesty."

" In the environs of Paris ? "

"At St. Denis, at St. Mande, and at Grenelle."

" Give me some details, sir — some details," exclaimed
the queen.

" Madame, the Prince do Lambesq and Monsieur de
Bezenval can give you them with infinitely more accuracy
than myself."

" Go on, sir. It pleases me to hear these details from
your lips. Under whose orders are those forty thousand
men ? "

"In the first place, under the orders of Monsieur de
Bezenval and Monsieur de Lambesq; then under those of

TAKING THE BASTILE. 281

the Prince de Conde, of Mousiear de Narbonue, Fritzlar,
and Monsieur de Salkenaym."

''Is this true, prince?" asked the queen, turning
toward M. de Lambesq.

*' Yes, your majesty," answered the prince, bowing.

** On the heights of Montmartre," said tlie young man,
*^ there is a complete park of artillery ; in six hours the
whole quarter of the town within the range of Montmartre
could be laid in ashes. Let Montmartre give the signal to
commence the fire ; let it be answered by Vincennes ; let
ten thousand men debouch by the Champs Elysees, ten
thousand more by theBarriere d'Enfer, ten thousand more
by the Eue St. Martin, ten thousand more by the Bastile,
make Paris hear our cannonading from the four cardinal
points, and she cannot hold her ground for twenty-four
hours."

" Ah ! here is a man who, at all events, explains his
views frankly ; here is, at least, a clear and regular plan.
What do yoa think of it. Monsieur de Lambesq ? "

** I think," answered the prince, disdainfully, " that the
lieutenant of hussars is a perfect general."

" He is, at least," said the queen, who saw the young
officer turn pale with anger, '' he is, at least, a soldier who
does not despair."

"I thank you, madame," said the young man, bowing.
I do not know what your majesty's decision will be, but I
beg you to consider me among those who are ready to die
for you ; and, in so doing, 1 should only do that, I beg
your majesty to believe, which forty thousand soldiers are
ready to do, as well as all our chiefs."

And having said these words, the young man saluted the
prince courteously who had almost insulted him.

This act of courtesy struck the queen still more than the
protestations of fidelity which had preceded it.

" "What is your name, sir ? " asked she of the young
officer.

*' I am the Baron de Charny, madame," replied he, bowing,

" Dq Charny ! " exclaimed Marie Antoinette, blushing iu
spite of herself; *'are you, then, a relation of the Count
de Charny ? "

*' I am his brother, madame."

And the young man bowed gracefully, even lower than
ho had done before.

2S2 TAKING THE BASTILB.

" I ought/' said the queen, recovering from her con-
fusion, and casting a firm look around her, " I ought to
have recognized you from hearing your first words, as one
of my most faitliful servants. Thank you, baron. How is
it that I now see you at court for the first time ?"

** Madame, my elder brother, who is taking the place of
my father, has ordered me to remain with the regiment,
and during the seven years that I have had tlie honor of
serving in the army of the king, 1 have only twice been at
Versailles."

The queen looked for a considerable time at the young
man's face.

*' You resemble your brother," said she. " I shall rep-
rimand him for having so long omitted to present you, and
left you to present yourself at court."

And the queen turned in the direction of her friend the
coun ;rjs, who, during all tl)is scene, had remained motion-
less and mute upon the sofa.

But it was not thus with the remainder of those present.
The officers, electrified by the reception the queen had
given to the young man, were exaggerating to the utmost
among themselves the enthusiasm for the royal cause, and
from every group expressions burst forth, evincing a hero-
ism capable of subjugating the whole of France.

Marie Antoinette made the most of these manifesta-
tions, which evidently flattered her secret wishes.

She preferred to struggle ratlier than to suffer, to die
rather than to yield. With this view, as soon as the first
news had readied her from Paris, she had determined upon
a stubborn resistance to the rebellious spirit which had
threatened to swallow up all the jirerogatives of the French
monarchy.

If there is a blind and senseless degree of strength, it is
that stimulated by figures and vain hopes.

A figure, followed by an agglomeration of zeros, will
soon exceed all the resources of the universe.

The same may be said of the plans of a conspirator or
a despot. On enthusiasm, whicn itself is based on im-
perceptible hope, gigantic conceptions are built, which
evaporate before the first breath of wind, in less time than
was required to coJidense them into a mist.

After hearing these foAv words i)rrtnoiiiiccd by the Baron
de Charny, after the enthusiastic hurrahs of the by-stand-

TAKING THE BASTILE. 283

ers, Marie Antoinette conld almost imagine herself at
the head of a powerful army ; she could hear the rolling
of her harmless artillery, and she rejoiced at the fear which
they would doubtless occasion among the Parisians, and
had already gained a victory which she thought decisive.

Around her, men and women, beaming with youth, with
confidence and love, were reckoning the number of those
brilliant hussars, those heavy dragoons, those terrible
Swiss, those well-equipped artillerymen, and laughed at
the vulgar pikes and their coarse wooden handles, little
thinking that on the points of these vile weapons were to
be borne the noblest heads of France.

*' As for me," murmured the Princess de Lamballe, "I
am more afraid of a pike than of a gun."

'^ Because it is much uglier, my dear Therese," replied
the queen, smiling. '' But, at all events, compose your-
self. Our Parisian pikemen are not a match for the fa-
mous Swiss pikemen of Morat ; and the Swiss of the present
day have something more than pikes ; they have good
muskets, with which they take good aim, thank Heaven ! "

" Oh, as to that, I will answer for it," said M. de Be-
zenval.

The queen turned round once more toward Mme. de
Polignac to see if all these assurances had restored her
wonted tranquillity ; but the countess appeared still paler
and more trembling than before.

The queen, whose extreme tenderness of feeling often
caused her to sacrifice her royal dignity for the sake of
this friend, in vain seemed to solicit her to look mor&
cheerful.

The young woman still continued gloomy, and appeared
absorbed in the saddest thoughts. But this despondency
only served to increase the queen's sorrow. The enthusi-
asm among the young oflficers maintained itself at the same
pitch, and all of them, with the exception of the snperior
officers, were gathered round the Baron de Charny, and
drawing up their plans for battle.

In the midst of this febrile excitement the king entered
alone, unaccompanied by an usher, and with a smile upon
his lips.

Tlie queen, still greatly excited by the warlike emotions
which slio had aroused, rushed forward to meet him.

At the sight of the king all conversation had ceased, and

284 TAKING THE BASTILE.

was followed by the most perfect silence ; every one ex-
pected a kingly word — one of those words which electrify
and subjugate.

When clouds are sufficiently loaded with electricity, the
least shock, as is well known, is sufficient to produce a
flash.

To the eyes of the courtiers, tlie king and queen advanc-
ing to meet each other, appeared like t\vo electric bodies,
from which the thunder must proceed.

They listened, and trembled, and eagerly awaited to
catch the first words which were to proceed from royal lips.

*' Madame," said Louis XVI., ''amid all these events,
they have forgotten to serve up my supper in ray own
ftpartment ; be so kind as to have it brought here."

" Here ? " exclaimed the queen, with au air of stupe-
faction.

" If vou will permit it."

" But, sire "

" You were conversing, it is true ; but, while at supper,
I shall converse also."

The mere word supper had chilled the enthusiasm of
every one present. But on hearing tlie king's last words,
"at supper I shall converse also," the young queen herself
could hardly help thinking that so much calmness con-
cealed some heroism.

The king doubtless thought by his tranquillity to over-
come all the terror occasioned by the events that had taken
place.

Undoubtedly the daughter of Marie Threese could not
conceive that at so critical a moment the son of St. Louis
could still remain subject to the material wants of ordinary
life.

Marie Antoinette was mistaken ; the king was hungry,
that was all.

CHAPTER XXVL

Ox a word from Marie Antoinette, the king's supper
was served on a small table in the queen's own cabinet.

But the contrary of what the princess had hoped soon
hai)pened. Louis XVI. ordered every one to be silent,
but it was only that he might not be disturbed while at
Bupper.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 285

While Marie Antoinette was endeavoring to revive
enthusiasm, the king was devouring a Perigord pie.

The officers did not think thisgastronomical performance
worthy of a descendant of St. Louis, and formed them-
selves into small groups, whose observations were not per-
haps as respectful as circumstances ought to have de-
manded.

The queen blushed, and her impatience betrayed itself
in all her movements. Her delicate, aristocratic, and
nervous nature could not comprehend this domination of
matter over mind.

She drew nearer to the king, M'ith a view to bring those
nearer to the table who had retired to a more dista,nt part
of the room.

" Sire," said she, " have yon no orders to give ? "

'' Ah ! ah ! " said the king, his mouth full, " what
orders, madame ? Let us see ; will you be our Egeria in
this difficult moment ? "

And while saying these words he bravely attacked a part-
ridge stuffed with truffles.

'' Sire," said the queen, " N"uma was a pacific king.
Now it is generally thought that what we need at present
is a warlike king ; and if your majesty is to take antiquity
for his model, as you cannot become a Tarquin, you must
be a Eomulus."

The king smiled with a tranquillity which almost seemed
holy.

" Are these gentlemen warlike also ?" asked he.

And he turned toward the group of officers ; and his
eyes, being animated by the cheering influence of his
meal, appeared to all present to sparkle with courage.

*' Yes, sire," they all cried, with one voice, ''war; we
only ask for war."

*' Gentlemen, gentlemen," said the king, " you do me,
in truth, the greatest pleasure, by proving to me that when
occasion may require it, I may rely upon you. But T have
for the moment Jiot only a council, but also a stomach ;
the former will advise me what I ought to do, the second
advises me to do what I am now doing."

And he laughed loudly, and handed his plate, full of
fragments, to the officer who was in waiting, in exchange
for a clean one.

A murmur of stupefaction and of rage passed like a shud

286 TAKING THE BASTILE.

der through the group of gentlemen, who ouly required a
signal from the king to slied all their blood.

The queen turned round and stamped her foot.

The Prince de Lambesq immediately came to her.

" You see, madame," said he, " his majesty uo doubt
thinks, as I do, that it is better to wait. It is prudence —
and although it is not one of mine, unfortunately, pru-
dence is a necessary virtue in the times we live in."

" Yes, sir, yes ; it is a very necessary virtue," said the
queen, biting her lips till they bled.

With a deathlike sadness she reclined against the chim-
ney-piece, her eye lost in darkness, and her soul overcome
by despair.

The singular contrast between the disposition of the
king and that of the queen struck every one with astonish-
ment. The queen could hardly restrain her tears, while
the king continued his supper with the proverbial appe-
tite of the Bourbon family.

The room gradually became empty, the various groups
melted away as does the snow in a garden before the rays
of the sun — the snow, beneath which the black and deso-
late earth soon makes its appearance here and there.

The queen, seeing this warlike group, upon which she
relied so much, gradually disappear, imagined that all her
power was vanishing, as in former times the breath of the
Lord had melted those vast armies of Assyrians and Ama-
lekites, which one single mist sufficed to swallow up in its
darkness.

vShe was aroused from this species of torpor by the sweet
voice of the Countess Jules, who approached her with
Mme. Diana de Polignac, her sister in-law.

At the sound of this voice, tlie sweet future, with its
flowers and palm leaves, returned to the mind of this
haughty woman. A sincere and devoted friend was to
her of more value than ten kingdoms.

*' Oh, thou, thou ! " murmured she, clasping the Count-
ess Jules in licr arms. " I have, then, one friend left.''

And the tears, which for so long a time had been re-
strained, burst forth from her eyelids, trickled down her
cheeks, and inundated her bosom, but instead of being
bitter, these tears were sweet, instead of oppressing her,
they dislturdened her lioart.

They both remained silent for a few moments, during

TAKING THE BASTILE. ^ 287

which the queen continued to hold the countess in her
arms.

It was the duchess who first broke this silence, while
still holding her sister-in-law by the hand.

*' Madame," said she, with a voice so timid that she
almost appeared ashamed, "I do not think your majesty
will disapprove of the project which I am about to sub-
mit to your notice."

" What project ? " asked the queen, attentively.
** Speak, duchess, speak ! "

And while preparing to listen to the Duchess Diana, the
queen leaned upon the shoulder of her favorite,the countess.

" Madame," continued the duchess, " the opinion
which I am about to pronounce comes from a person whose
authority will not be doubted by your majesty ; it comes
from Her Eoyal Highness Madame Adelaide, the queen's
aunt."

*' What a singular preamble, dear duchess," said the
queen, gaily. "Come, let us hear this opinion,"

" Madame, circumstances are disheartening ; the favors
which our family en joy from your majesty have been much
exaggerated ; calumny stains the august friendship which
you deign to grant us in exchange for our respectful
devotion."

*' Well, then, duchess," said the queen, with a commence-
ment of astonishment, " do you not think I have evinced
sufficient courage ? Have I not valiantly sustained my
friends against public opinion, against the court, against
the people, against the king himself ? "

" Oh, madame, on the contrary ; and your majesty has
so nobly sustained her friends that she has opposed her
breast to every blow, so that to-day tlie danger has become
great, terrible even, the friends so nobly defended by
your majesty would be both cowardly and unfaithful ser-
vants if they did not prove themselves deserving of your
favor."

"Ah! this is well, this is beautiful," said Marie An-
toinette, with enthusiasm, embracing the countess, whom
she still pressed against her bosom while holding the hand
of Mme. de Polignac in hers.

But both of them turned pale, instead of proudly rais-
ing their heads, after they had been thus caressed by thtir
sovereign.

288 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Mme. Jules de Polignac made a movement to disengage
herself from the arms of the queen ; but the latter still
pressed her to her heart, despite her efforts to disengage
herself.

" But," stammered Mme. Diana de Polignac, ** your
majesty does not, perhaps, well understand what we have
the honor to make known to you, in order to enable you
to ward off the blows which threaten your throne, your
person, perhaps, on account of the very friendship with
which you honor us. There is a painful mean, a bitter
sacrifice to our hearts, but we must endure it ; necessity
commands it."

At these words it was the queen's turn to become pale,
for she no longer perceived courageous and faithful friend-
ship, but fear, beneath tins exordium, and under the veil
of this reserve.

" Let us see," said she ; " speak, speak, duchess ; what
is this sacrifice ? "

" Oh ! the sacrifice is entirely on our side, madame,"
replied the latter. " We are, God knows for what reason,
execrated in France ; by disencumbering your throne, we
shall restore all its splendor, all the warmth of the popular
love, a love either extinguished or intercepted by our
presence."

" You would leave me ! " cried the queen, vehemently.
** Who has said that ? who has asked for that ? "

And she cast a despairing look on the Countess Jules
de Polignac, gently pushing her from her ; the latter held
down her head in great confusion.

" Not I," said the Countess Jules ; " I, on the contrary,
ask but to remain."

But these words were uttered in such a tone that they
implied, "' Order me to leave you, madame, and I will
leave you."

Oh I holy friendship, thou sacred chain which can link
together the hearts of even a sovereign and her subject in
indissoluble bonds ; oh ! holy friendship, thou engendercst
more heroism than even love or ambition, those two noble
maladies of the human heart ; but thou canst not brook
deceit. The queen at once shattered to atoms the adored
altar she had raised to thee in her heart ; she required but
a look, one only look, to reveal to her that which during
ten years slie had not perceived, she had not even sur-

TAKING THE BASTTLE. 289

mised— coldness and interested calculation — excusable,
justifiable, legitimate, perhaps ; but what can excuse, jus-
tify, or legitimize in the eyes of one who still fondly loves
the abandonment of the one who has ceased to love ?

Marie Antoinette's only revenge for the pain which was
thus inflicted on her was the ice-like coldness with which
she gazed upon her friend.

"Ah ! Duchess Diana, this, then, is your opinion ?"
cried she, compressing with her feverish hand the agitated
pulsation of her heart.

**Alas! madame," answered the latter, "it is not my
choice, it is not my will which dictates to me what 1 am
to do, it is the law of destiny."

'* Yes, duchess," said Marie Antoinette. And, turning
again toward the Countess Jules: " And you, countess,
what say you to this ? "

The countess replied by a burning tear, as if from a
remorseful pang ; but she had exhausted all her strength
in the effort she had made.

" Well," said the queen, ''well, it is gratifying to my
feelings to see how much I am beloved. Thank you, my
dear countess ; yes, you incur great danger here ; the
anger of the people no longer knows any bounds ; yes, you
are all in the right, and I alone was foolish. You ask to
remain — that is pure devotedness ; but I cannot accept
such a sacrifice."

Tlie Countess Jules raised her beautiful eyes and looked
at the queen. But the queen, instead of reading the de-
votedness of a friend in them, could only perceive the
weakness of the woman.

"Thus, duchess," replied the queen, *' you are resolved
to leave me." And slie emphasized the word "you."

"Yes, your majesty."

" Doubtless, for some one of your estates — a distant — a
very distant one."

" Madame, in going away, in leaving 3'ou, it would be
as painful to travel fifty leagues as one hundred and fifty."

" But do you, then, intend to go into some foreign
country ? "

" Alas ! yes, madame."

A suppressed sigh tore the very depths of the queen's
heart, but it did not escape her lips.

" And where are you going ? "

]3— Dumas— Vol. IX.

290 TAKING THE BASTILE.

** To reside on the banks of the Rhine, madame."

" Well, you speak German, duchess," said the queen,
witli a look of indescribable sadness, "and it was I who
taught it you. The friendship of your queen will, at least,
have been useful to you to that extent, and I rejoice at it/*

Then, turning to the Countess Jules :

" I do not wish to separate you, my dear countess,"
said she. "You desire to remain here, and I deeply ap-
preciate that desire. But I — I, who fear for you — I in-
sist on your departure — I order you to leave me."

And having said these words, she suddenly stopped,
choked by emotions which, in spite of lier heroism, she
would, perhaps, not have had the power to control, had
not she heard at that moment the voice of the king, who
had taken no part whatever in what we have just been
relating.

The king was at his dessert.

** Madame," said the king, ** there is somebody in your
apartment ; they are seeking you."

"But, sire," exclaimed the queen, throwing aside every
other feeling but that of royal dignity, " in the first place,
you have orders to give. Let us see, only three persons
remain here ; but they are those with whom you have to
deal ; Monsieur de Lambesq, Monsieur de Bezenval, and
Monsieur de Broglie. Give your orders, sire ; give your
orders."

The king raised his heavy eyes, and appeared to hesitate.

'' What do you think of all this. Monsieur de Broglie ? '*
said he.

" Sire," replied the old marshal, " if you withdraw your
army from the sight of the Parisians, it will be said that
it was beaten by them. If you leave it in their presence,
your army must beat them."

" Well said ! " exclaimed the queen, grasping the mar-
shal's hand.

" Well said ! " cried M. de Bezenval.

The Prince de Lambesq was the only person present
who shook his head.

" Well, and after that ? " said the king.

" Command : march ! " cried the old marshal.

** Yes — march I " cried the queen.

*' Well, then, since you all wish it, march ! " said the
king.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 291

At that moment a note was handed to the queen ; its
contents were as follows :

" In the name of Heaven, madame, no rashness ! I
await an audience of your majesty."

** His writing ! " murmured the queen.

Then, turning round, she said, in a low tone, to the
woman who had brought the note :

** Is Monsieur de Charny in my room ? '*

** He has just arrived, completely covered with dust,
and I even think with blood," answered the confidante.

** One moment, gentlemen," exclaimed the queen to
M. de Bezenval and M. de Broglie ; " wait for me here ; I
shall return."

And she passed into her own apartment in great haste.

The king did not even move his head.

CHAPTER XXVII.

On entering her dressing-room, the queen found the
person there who had written the note brought by lier
waiting-woman.

He was a man thirty-five years of age, of lofty stature,
with a countenance which indicated strength and resolu-
tion ; liis grayish-blue eye, sharp and piercing as that of
the eagle, his straight nose, his prominent chin, gave a
martial character to his pliysiognomy, which was enhanced
by the elegance with which he wore the uniform of a
lieutenant in the body-guards.

His hands were still trembling under his torn and rufiled
cambric cuffs.

His sword had been bent, and could hardly be replaced
in the scabbard.

On the arrival of the queen, he was pacing hurriedly up
and down the dressing-room, absorbed by a thousand
feverish and agitated thouglits.

Marie Antoinette walked straight to him.

** Monsieur de Charny !" she exclaimed, '' Monsieur de
Charny, you here ? "

And seeing that the person whom she was addressing
bowed respectfully, according to etiquette, she made a sign
to her waiting-woman, who withdrew and closed the doors.

292 TAKING THE BASTILE.

The queen scarcely waited for the door to be closed,
when, seizing the hand of M. de Charny with vehemeuce :

"Count," cried she, *' wliy are you here ?"

" Because I considered it my duty to come, madame/'
said the count.

" No ; your duty was to fly Versailles ; it was to do
what we had agreed, to obey me ; it is, in fact, to do as
all my friends are doing who fear to share my fate. Your
duty is to sacrifice nothing to my destiny ; your duty is to
separate yourself from me."

" To separate myself from you ?" said he.

*' Yes ; to fly from me."

** And who, tlien, flies from you, madame ?"

*' Those who are prudent."

"1 think myself very prudent, madame, and that is why
I now come to Versailles."

" And from where do you come ? "

"From Paris."

" From revolted Paris ? "

"From boiling, intoxicated, and insanguined Paris."

The queen covered her face with both her hands.

" Oh ! " said she, " no one, not even you, will then come
to bring me some good news."

"Madame, in the present circumstances, ask your mes-
sengers to tell you but one thing — the truth."

"And is it the truth you have just been telling
me?"

" As I do always, madame."

" You have an' honest soul, sir, and a stout heart."

" I am a faithful subject, madame, that is all."

" Well, then, spare me for the moment, my friend ; do
not tell me a single word. You have arrived at a moment
when my heart was breaking. My friends, to-day, for tho
first time, overwhelm me with that truth which you have
always told me. Oh, it was this truth, count ; it was im-
possible for them to withhold it from me any longer. It
bursts forth everywhere: in the heavens, which are red;
in tlie air, which is filled with sinister noises ; in the
phvsiognomy of tlie courtiers, who are pale and serious.
No, no, count ; for the first time in your life, tell me not
the truth."

The count looked at the queen with amazement.

** Y''c8, yes," said she ; "you who know me to be cour-

TAKING THE BASTILE. 293

ageons, you are astoiiisbed, are you not ? Oh ! you are
not yet at the end of your astonishment."'

M. de Charny allowed an inquiring gesture to escape
him.

" You will see by and by," said the queen, with a nerv-
ous laugh.

" Does your majesty suffer ? " asked the count.

" No, no, sir. Come and sit down near me ; and not a
word more about those dreadful politics. Try to make
me forget them."

The count obeyed with a sad smile. Marie Antoinette
placed her hand upon his forehead.

*' Your forehead burns,*' said she.

" Yes, I have a volcano in my head."

" Your hand is icy cold."

And she pressed the count's hand between both hei*s.

" My heart is affected with a death-like coldness,"
said he.

*' Poor Olivier ! I had told you so. Let us forget it.
I am no longer queen ; I am no longer threatened ; I am
no longer hated. No, I am no longer a queen. I am a
woman, that is all. What is a whole universe to me ?
One heart that loves me would suffice for me."

The count fell on his knees before the queen, and kissed
her feet with the respect the Egyptians had for the god-
dess Isis.

" Oh, count, my only friend !" said the queen, trying to
raise him up, " do you know what the Duchess Diana is
about to do ? "

''She is going to emigrate," answered Charny, without
hesitating.

" He has guessed the truth," exclaimed Marie An-
toinette. " He luxs guessed it. Alas ! was it, then, pos-
sible to guess it ?"

'' Oh, certainly, madame," answered the count- ''one
can imagine anything at such a moment as tbis."

"But you and your friends," exclaimed the queen,
" why do you not emigrate, if you consider it so natural a
step?"

" In the first place, madame, I do not emigrate because
lam profoundly devoted to your majesty, and because I
have promised, not to you, but to myself, tliat I will not
quit you for a single instant during the impending storm.

294 TAKING THE BASTILE.

My brotliers will not emigrate, because my conduct will be
the model on which they will regulate tiieirs. In fine,
Madame de Charny will not emigrate, because she loves
your majesty sincerely, at least, so I believe."

" Yes, Andree has a very noble heart," said the queen,
with perceptible coldness.

" That is the reason why she will not leave Versailles,'*
answered De Charny.

'• Then I shall always have you near me," said the
queen, in the same icy tone, which she varied, so as to
express either her jealousy or her disdain.

" Your majesty has done me the honor to make me
lieutenant of the guards," said the Count de Charny ;
*' my post is at Versailles. I should not have left my post
if your majesty had not intrusted me with the care of the
Tuileries. * It is a necessary exile,' said the queen to me,
and I accepted that exile. Now, in all this, your majesty
well knows the Countess de Charny has neither reproved
the step, nor was she consulted with regard to it."

" It is true," replied the queen, in th; same freezing
tone.

"To-day," continued the count, with intrepidity, "I
think my post is no longer at the Tuileries, but at Ver-
sailles. Well, may it not displease the queen, I have
violated my orders, thus selecting the service I prefer ; and
here I am. Whether IVIadame de C-harny be alarmed or
not at the complexion of events — whether it be her desire
to emigrate or not — I will remain near the queen, unless,
indeed, the queen breaks my sword ; in which case, having
no longer the right to fight and to die for her on the floor
of Versailles, I shall still have that of sacrificing it on its
threshold, on the pavement."

The young man pronounced tliese simple words so val-
iantly and so loyally, they emanated so evidently from the
depths of his heart, that the queei\ appeared suddenly to
lose her haughtiness, a retreat behind which she had just
concealed feelings more liuinan than ro3'al.

" Count," said she, " never pronounce that word again.
Do not say that you will die for me, for, in truth, I know
that vou would do as you say."

" Oh, I shall always say it, on tlie contrary ! "exclaimed
M. de Charny. " I shall say it to everyone, and in
every place. I shall say it and I shall do it, because the

TAKING THE BASTILE. 295

time lias come, I fear, when all who have been attached to
the kings of this earth must die."

** Count, count ! what is it gives you this fatal fore-
warning ? "

'* Alas ! madame," replied De Charny, shaking his head,
**and I, too, during that fatal American war, 1, too, was
affected like the rest with that fever of independence
which pervaded all society. I, too, wished to take an ac-
tive part in the emancipation of the slaves, as it was cus-
tomary to say in those days, and I was initiated into the
secrets of masonry. I became affiliated with a secret
society, with the Lafayettes and the Lameths. Do you
know what the object of this society was, madame ? Tlie
destruction of thrones. Do you know what it had for its
motto ? Three letters— L. P. D."

*' And what did these letters signify ?"

'' Lilia pedihus destrue! Trample the lilies under-
foot ! "

"Then what did you do ':"'

" I withdrew with honor. But for one who withdrew
from the society, there were twenty who applied to be ad-
mitted into it. Well, then, what is happening to-day,
madame, is the prologue to the grand drama which has
been preparing in silence and in darkness for twenty years.
At the head of the men who are stimulating Paris to re-
sistance, who govern the Hotel de Ville, who occupy the
Palais Royal, and who took the Bastile, I recognized the
countenances of my former affiliated brethren. Do not
deceive yourself, madame ; all the events which have just
taken place are not the results of chance ; they are out-
breaks which had been planned for years."

"Oh, you think so! you think so, my friend!" ex-
claimed the queen, bursting into tears.

" Do not weep, madame, but endeavor to comprehend
the present crisis," said the count.

" You wish me to comprehend it ! " continued Marie
Antoinette. " I, the queen — I, who was born the sovereign
of twenty-five millions of men — you wish me to understand
how these twenty-five millions of subjects, born to obey
me, should revolt and murder my friends ! No — that I
shall never comprehend."

" And yet it is absolutely necessary for you to under-
stand it, madame ; for the moment this obedience becomes

296 TAKING THE BASTILE.

a burden to these subjects, to these men born to obey you,
you become tlicir enemy ; and until they liave the strength
to devour you, to do which they are shiiri)euing their
famished teeth, they will devour your friends, still more
detested than you are."

" And, perhaps, you will next tell me that they are
right, most sage philosopher," exclaimed the queen, im-
periously, her eyes dilated, and her nostrils quivering M'ith
anger.

** Alas ! yes, madame, they are right," said the count,
in his gentle and affectionate voice ; " for when I drive
along the boulevards, with my beautiful English horses,
my coat glittering with gold, and my attendants covered
with more silver than would be necessary to feed tluee
families, your people, tliat is to say, those twenty-five mil-
lions of starving men, ask themselves of what use I am to
them — I, who am only a man like themselves."

" You serve them with this, marquis," exclaimed the
queen, seizing tiie hilt of the count's sword ; " you serve
them with the sword that your father wielded so heroically at
Fontenoy, your grandfather at Steinkirk, your great-grand-
father at Lens and at Rocroi, your ancestors at Ivry, at
Marignan, and at Agincourt. The nobility serves the French
nation by waging war. By war, the nobility has earned,
at the price of its blood, the gold which decks its gar-
ments, the silver which covers its liveries. Do not, there-
fore, ask yourself, Olivier, how you serve the people, you
who wield in your turn, and bravely, too, the sword which
has descended to you from your forefathers."

'•' Madame ! madame I " said the count, sliaking his
head, "do not speak so much of the blood of the nobility ;
the people, too, have blood in their veins ; go and see it
running in streams on the Place do la Bastile ; go and
count their dead, stretched out on the crimsoned pave-
ment, and consider that their hearts, which now no longer
beat, throbbed with as much feeling as that of a kniglit
on the day when your cannon were thundering against
them ; on the day when, seizing a new weapon in their
unskilful hands, they sung in the midst of gra])e-shot — a
thing wliich even our bravest grenadiers do not always.
Ah ! madame — my sovereign, look not on me, I entreat you,
with that frowning eye. What is a greinidier ? It is a gilt
blue coat, covering the heart of which 1 was epeaking to

TAKING THE BASTILE. 297

you a moment since. Of what importance is it to the
bullet which pierces and kills, that the heart be covered
with blue cloth or a linen rag ? Of what importance is it
to the heart which is pierced through, whether the cuirass
which protected it was cloth or canvas ? The time is come
to think of all that, madame. You have no longer twenty-
five millions of subjects, you have no longer twenty -five
millions of men. You have twenty-five millions of sol-
diers,"

^' Who will fight against me, count ? "

*'Yes, against you ; for they are fighting for liberty,
and you stand between them and liberty."

A long silence followed the words of the count. The
queen was the first to break it.

*'In fine," said she, "you have told me this truth,
which I had begged you not to tell me."

"Alas! madame," replied Charny, "under whatever
form my devotion may conceal it, under whatever veil my
respect disguises it, in spite of me, in spite of yourself,
examine it, listen to it, think of it. The truth is there,
madame, is there forever, and you can no longer banish it
from your mind, whatever may be your efforts to the con-
trary. Sleep ! sleep, to forget it, and it will haunt your
pillow, will become the phantom of your dreams, a reality
at your awakening ! "

" Oh, count," said the queen, proudly, " I know a sleep
which it cannot disturb."

" As for that sleep, madame, I do not fear it, more
than does your majesty ; and perhaps I desire it quite as
much."

" Oh !" exclaimed the queen, in despair, "according
to you it is, then, our sole refuge ? "

" Yes ; but let us do nothing rashly, madame. Let us
go no faster than our enemies, and we shall go straight to
that sleep by the fatigues whicli we shall have to endure
during so many stormy days."

And a new silence, still more gloomy than the first, ap-
peared to weigh down the spirits of the two speakers.

They were seated, he near her, and she near him. They
touched each other, and yet between them there was an
immense abyss, for their minds viewed the future in a
different light.

The queen was the first to return to the subject of their

sake

298 TAKING THE BASTILE.

conversatiou, but indirectly. She looked fixedly at the
couut. Theu :

'' Let ns see, sir," said she. " One word as to our-
selves, and you will tell me all — all — all. You uudcr-
etand me ? "

" I am ready to answer you, madame."

" Can you swear to me that you came here only for my

"Oh ! do yon doubt it?"

•'■ Will you swear to me that Madame de Charny had not
written to you ?"

''She.^"

" Listen to me. I know that she is going out. I know
that she has some plan in her mind. Swear to me, count,
that it was not on her account that you returned."

At this moment a knock, or, rather, a scratch, at the
door was heard.

''Come in," said the queen.

The waiting-woman again appeared.

*' Madame," said she, '' the king has just finished his
supper."

Tlie count looked at ]\Iai'ie Antoinette with astonish-
ment.

" AVell," said she, shrugging her shoulder, ''what is
there astonishing in that ? Must the king not take his
supper ?"

Olivier frowned.

" Tell the king," replied the queen, without at all dis-
turbing herself, " that I am just receiving news from
Paris, and that I shall communicate it to him when I have
received it."

Then, turning toward Charny :

" Go on," said she ; " now that the king has supped, it
is but natural that he should digest his food."

CHAPTER XXVIIL

This interruption had only caused a momentary sus-
pension in the conversation, but had changed in nothing
the twofold sentiment of jealousy which animated the
queen at this moment — jealousy of love as a, woman-
jealousy of power as a queen.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 299

Hence, it resulted that the conversation, which seemed
exhausted during its first period, had, on the contrary,
only been slightly glanced at, and was about to be revived
more sharply than ever ; as in a battle, where, after the
cessation of the first fire, which had commenced the action
on a few points, the fire which decides the victory soon
becomes general all along the line.

The count, moreover, as things had arrived at this
point, seemed as anxious as the queen to come to an ex-
planation ; for which reason, the door being closed again,
he was the first to resume the conversation.

" You asked me if it was for Madame de Charny that I
had come back," said he. *' Has your majesty, then, for-
gotten that engagements were entered into between us,
and that I am a man of honor ? "

"Yes," said the queen, holding down her head, "yes,
we have made engagements ; yes, you are a man of honor ;
yes, you have sworn to sacrifice yourself to my happiness,
and it is that oath which most tortures me, for in sacrific-
ing yourself to my happiness, you immolate at the same
time a beautiful woman and a noble character — another
crime ! "

*' Oh, madame ! now you are exaggerating the accusa-
tion. I only wish you to confess that I have kept my
word as a gentleman."

" It is true ; I am insensate — forgive me "

*' Do not call a crime that which originated in chance
and necessity. We have both deplored this marriage,
which alone could shield the honor of the queen. As for
this marriage, there only remains for me to endure it, as
I have done for many years."

'' Yes," exclaimed the queen. '' But do you think that
I do not perceive your grief, that I do not understand
your sorrow, which evince themselves in the shape of the
highest respect ? Do you think that I do not see all
this ? "

" Do me the favor, madame," said the count, bowing,
" to communicate to me what you see, in order that if I
have not suffered enough myself, and made others suffer
enough, I may double the amount of suffering for myself,
and for all those who surround me, as I feel certain of
ever falling short of what I owe you."

The queen held out her hand to the count. Thewordfa

300 TAKING THE BASTILE.

of the young man had an irresistible power, like every-
thing that emanates from a sincere and impassioned heart.

*' Command me then, madame," rejoined he ; "I en-
treat you, do not fear to lay your commands upon me."

** Oh ! yes, yes, I know it well. I am wrong ; yes, for-
give me ; yes, it is true. But if you have anywhere some
hidden idol, to whom you offer up mysterious incense — if
for you there is some corner of the world an adored
woman — oh ! I no longer dare to pronounce that word —
it strikes me with terror ; and I fear that the syllables
which compose it should strike the air and vibrate in my
ear — well, then, if such a woman does exist, concealed
from every one, do not forget that you have publicly, in
the eyes of others as in your own, a young and beautiful
wife, whom you surround with care and attention, a wife
who leans upon your arm, and who, while leaning on your
arm, leans at the same time on your heart."

Olivier knit his brow, and the delicate lines of his face
assumed for a moment a severe aspect.

*' "What do you ask, madame ? " said he. " Do I sepa-
rate myself from the Countess de Charny ? You remain
silent. Is that the reason, then ? Well, then, 1 am ready
to obey this order, even ; but you know that she is alone
in the world — she is an orphan. Her father, the Baron
de Taverney, died last year, like a worthy knight of the
olden time, who wishes not to see that which is about to
take place in ours. Her brother — yon know that lier
brother, Maison Rouge, makes his appearance once a year
at most — comes to embrace his sister, to pay his respects
to your majesty, and then goes away, without any one
knowing what becomes of him."

*'Yes, I know all that."

'* Consider, madame, that this Countess de Charny,
were God to remove me from this world, could resume her
maiden name, and the purest angel in heaven could not
detect in her dreams, in her thoughts, a single unholy
word or thought."

*' Oh ! yes, yes," said the queen ; " I know that your
Andr6e is an angel upon earth ; 1 know that she deserves
to be loved. That is the reason why I think she has a
brilliant future before her, while mine is hopeless. Oh !
no, no. Come, count, I bogof you, say not another word ;
I no longer speak to you as a queen. Forgive me, I forget

TAKING THE BASTILE. 301

myself ; but what would you have ? There is in my soul
R voice which always sings happiness., joy, and love, al-
though it is too often assailed by those sinister voices
which speak of nothing but misfortune, war, and death.
It is the voice of my youth, which I have survived.
Charny, forgive me, I shall no longer be young, I shall no
longer smile, I shall no longer love ! "

And the unhappy woman covered her burning eyes with
her thin and delicate hands, and the tear of a queen fil-
tered brilliant as a diamond between each one of her fingers.

The count once more fell on his knees before her.

*' Madame, in the name of Heaven !" said he, "order
me to leave you, to fly from you, to die for you, but do
not let me see you weep."

And the count himself could hardly refrain from sob-
bing as he spoke.

*' It is all over," said Marie Antoinette, raising her head
and speaking gently, with a smile replete with grace.

And with a beautiful movement, she threw back her
thick, powdered hair, which had fallen on her neck, white
as the driven snow.

" Yes, yes ; it is over," continued the queen. "1 shall
not afflict you any more. Let us throw aside all these
follies. Great God ! it is strange that the woman should
be so weak, when the queen so much needs to be firm.
You come from Paris, do you not ? Let us converse
about it. You told me some things that I have forgot-
ten : and yet they were very serious, were they not. Mon-
sieur do Charny ? "

'* Be it so, madame ; let us return to that fatal subject,
for, as you observe, what I have to tell you is very serious.
Yes, I have just arrived from Paris, and I was present at
the downfall of the monarchy."

** I was right to request you to return to serious matters,
and most assuredly, you make them more than sufficiently
gloomy, A successful insurrection, do you call that the
downfall of the monarchy ? What, is it because the Bas-
tile has been taken, Monsieur de Charny, that you say the
monarchy is abolished ? Oh ! you do not reflect that the
Bastile was founded in France only in the fourteenth cen-
tury, while monarchy has been taking root in the world
during the la"* six thousand years."

** I should be well pleased to deceive myself in this mat-

3(12 TAKING THE BASTILE.

ter, inadame," replied the count, " and then, instead of
afflicting yonr Timjesty's mind, I should bring to you tlie
most consoling news. Unfortunately, the instrument will
not produce any other sounds but those for which it was
intended/^

" Let us see, let ns see ; T -will sustain you. I who am
but a woman ; I will put you on the right path."

" Alas ! I ask for nothing better."

" The Parisians have revolted, have they not ?'*

**Yes."

'•' In what proportion ? "

**In the proportion of twelve to fifteen."

'* How do you arrive at this calculation ? "

*' Oh ! very easily ; the people form twelve fifteenths of
the body of the nation ; there remain two fifteenths for
the nobility and one for the clergy."

*' Your calculations are exact, count, and you have them
at your fingers' ends. Have you read the works of Mon-
sieur and Madame de Necker ? "

" Tliose of Monsieur Necker ? Yes, madame."
■ " AVell, the proverb holds good," said the queen, gaily ;
**we are never betrayed but by our own friends. Well,
then, here is my own calculation — will you listen to
it?"

''With all respect."

" Among these twelve fifteenths there are six of women,
are there not ? "

*' Yes, your majesty. But "

" Do not interrupt me. We said there were six fifteenths
of women, so let us say six ; two of indifferent or inca-
pable old men — is that too much ? "

"No."

"There still remain four fifteenths, of which you will
allow that at least two are cowards or lukewarm individuals
— I flatter the French nation. But finally, there remain
two fifteenths ; I will grant you that they are furious,
robust, brave, and warlike. Tliese two fifteenths, let us
consider tliem as belonging to Paris only, for it is needless
to speak of tlie provinces, is it not? It is only Paris that
requires to be retaken ?"

" Yes, madame. But "

" Always but — wait a moment. You can reply when I
have concluded."

TAKING THE BASTILE. ^ 303

M. de Cliarny bowed.

" I therefore estimate," continued the queen, *' the two
fifteenths of Paris at one hundred thousand men — is that
sufficient ?"

This time the count did not answer. The queen re-
joined :

**Well, then, to these hundred thousand men, badly
armed, badly disciplined, and but little accustomed to
battle, hesitating, because they know they are doing wrong,
I can oppose fifty thousand men, known throughout Europe
for their brav^ery, with officers like you, Monsieur de
Charny ; besides, that sacred cause which is denominated
divine right, and in addition to all this, my own firm soul,
which it is easy to move, but difficult to break.''

The count still remained silent.

*' Do you think," continued the queen, *' that in a battle
fought in such a cause, two men of the people are worth
more than one of my soldiers ?"

Charny said nothing.

" Speak — answer me ! Do you think so ?" exclaimed
the queen, growing impatient.

*•' Madame," answered the count, at last, throwing aside,
on this order from the queen, the respectful reserve which
he had so long maintained, ^'onafield of battle, where
these hundred thousand men Avould be isolated, undisci-
plined, and badly armed as they are, your fifty thousand
soldiers would defeat them in half an hour."

*' Ah !" said the queen, *'I was then right."

*' Wait a moment. But it is not as you imagine. And,
in the first place, your hundred thousand insurgents in
Paris are five hundred thousand."

*' Five hundred thousand ? "

" Quite as many. You had omitted the women and
children in your calculation. Oh ! Queen of France — oh !
proud and courageous woman, consider them so many
men, these women of Paris ; the day will perhaps come
when they will compel you to consider them as so many
demons."

*' What can you mean, count ? "

'* Madame, do you know what part a woman plays in a
civil war? No, you do not. Well, I will tell you, and
you will see that two soldiers against each woman would
not be too many."

304 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Count, have yon lost your senses ? "

Charny smiled sadly.

" Did you see them at the Bastile ? '* asked he, *' in the
midst of the fire, in the midst of the shot, crying to arms,
threatening with their fists your redoubtable Swiss soldiers,
fully armed and equipped, uttering maledictions over tiie
bodies of the slain, with that voice that excites the hearts
of the living. Have we not seen them boiling the pitch,
dragging cannon along the streets, giving cartridges to
those who were eager for the combat, and to the timid
combatants a cartridge and a kiss ? Do you know that as
many women as men trod the drawbridge of the Bastile,
and that at this moment, if the stones of the Bastile are
falling, it is by pick-axes wielded by women's hands ?
Ah ! madame, do not overlook the women of Paris, take
them into consideration ; think also of the children who
cast bullets, who sharpen swords, who throw paving-stones
from a sixth story ; think of them, for the bullet which
was cast by a child may kill your best general from afar
off, for the sword which it has sharpened will cut the ham-
strings of your war-horses, for the clouds of stones which
fall as fpom the skies will crush your dragoons and your
guards ', consider the old men, madame, for if they have
no longer the strength to raise a sword, they have still
enough to serve as shields. At the taking of the Btistile,
madame, there were old men. Do you know what they
did, those aged men whom you affect to despise ? They
placed themselves before the young men, who steadied
their muskets on their shoulders, that they might take
sure aim, so that the balls of your Swiss killed the helpless
aged man, whose body served as a rampart to the vigorous
youth. Include the aged men, for it is they, who, for the
last three hundred years, have related to succeeding gen-
erations the insults suffered by their mothers — the barren-
ness of their fields, caused by the devouring of their crops
by the noblemen's game — the odium attached to their
caste, crushed down by feudal privileges — and then the
sons seize a hatchet, a club, a gun — in short, any weapon
within their reach, and sally out to kill, fully charged
with the curses of the aged against all this tyranny, as the
cannon is loaded with jiowder and iron at Paris, this mo-
ment. Men, women, old men, and children, are all cry-
ing, * Liberty ! deliverance '.' Count everything that has

TAKING THE BASTILE. ^ 305

a voice, madame, and yon may estimate the number of
combatants of Paris at eight hundred thousand souls."

" Three hundred Spartans defeated the army of Xerxes,
Monsieur de Charny."

" Yes ; but to-day your three hundred Spartans have
increased to eight hundred tliousand, and your fifty tliou-
sand soldiers compose the army of Xerxes."

The queen raised her head, her hands convulsively
clinched, and her face burning with shame and anger.

*'0h I let me fall from my throne," said she, " let me
be torn to pieces by your five hundred thousand Parisians,
but do not suffer me to hear a Charnv, a man devoted to
me, speak to me thus."

" If he speaks to you thus, madame, it is because it is
necessary ; for this Charny has not in his veins a single
drop of blood that is unworthy of his ancestors, or that is
not all your own.

" Then let him march upon Paris with me, and there
we will die together."

" Ignominiously," said the count, '* without the pos-
sibility of a struggle. We shall not even fight ; Ave shall
disap))ear like the Philistines or the Amalekites. March
upon Paris ! — but you seem to be ignorant of a very impor-
tant thing — it is at the moment we shall enter Paris, the
houses will fall upon us as did the waves of the Red Sea
upon Pharaoh : and you will leave in France a name wliich
will be accursed, and your children will be killed like the
cubs of a wolf."

*' Plow, then, should I fall, count ?" said the queen,
with haughtiness. " Teach me, 1 entreat you."

** As a victim, madame," respectfully replied M. de
Charny; ''as a queen, smiling and forgiving those who
strike the fatal blow. Ah ! if you had five hundred
thousand men like me, I should say : Let us set out on
our march ! let us march to-night ! let us march this very
instant ! And to-morrow yon would reign at the Tuiler-
ies — to-morrow you would have reconquered your throne."

*' Oh ! " exclaimed the queen, " even you have given
way to despair — you, in whom I had founded all my
hopes."

'■' Yes, I have despaired, madame ; because all Franco
thinks as Paris does ; because your army, if it were vic-
torious in Paris, would be swalk'wed up by Lyons, iiouen.

306 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Lisle, Strasburg, Nantes, aud a hiuulred other devoTiring
cities. Come, come, take courage, inadame, return your
sword into its scabbard."

** Ah ! was it for this," cried the queen, *' that I have
gathered round me so many brave men ? was it for lliis
that I have inspired them wuth so much courage ?"

'* If that is not your opinion, madame, give your orders,
and we will march upon Paris this very night. Say, what
is your pleasure ? "

There was so much devotion in this offer of the count,
that it intimidated the queen more than a refusal would
have done. She threw herself, in despair, on a sofa, where
she struggled for a considerable time with her haughty soul.

At length, raising her head :

" Count," said she, " do you desire me to remain in-
active ? "

" I have the honor to advise your majesty to remain

so."

''It shall be so— come back."

" Alas ! madame, have I offended you ? " said the count,
looking at the queen with a sorrowful expression, but in
which beamed indescribable love.

" No — your hand."

The count bowed gracefully, and gave his hand to the
queen.

''I must scold you," said Marie Antoinette, endeavoring

to smile.

" For what reason, madame ? "

" How ! you have a brother in the army, and I have
only been accidentally informed of it."

" I do not comprehend "

''This evening a young officer of the hussars of Ber-
chigny "

" Ah ! my brother George ! "

" Why have you never spoken to me of this young man ?
Why has he not a high rank in a regiment ? "

" Because he is fet quite young and niexperienced ;
because he is not worthy of command as a chief officer;
because, in fine, if your "majesty has condescended to look
80 low as upon me, who am called Charny, to honor me
with your friendship, it is not a reason that my rehitions
should be advanced, to the prejudice of a crowd of brave
noblemen, more deserving than my brothers.'

TAKING THE BASTILE. - 307

€C

Have, you, then, still another brother ? "

" Yes, madame ; and one who is as ready to die for your
majesty as the two others."

" Does he not need anything ? "

"Nothing, madame. We have the happiness to have
not only our lives, but also a fortune, to lay at the feet of
your majesty."

While he was pronouncing these last words, the queen,
who was much moved by a trait of such delicate probity,
and he himself palpitating with affection caused by the
gracious kindness of her majesty, they were suddenly dis-
turbed in their conversation by a groan from the adjoin-
ing room.

The queen rose from her seat, went to the door, and
screamed aloud.

She had just perceived a woman who was writhing on
the carpet and suffering the most horrible convulsions.

" Oh, the countess ! " said she, in a whisper, to M. de
Charny. " She has overheard our conversation."

"No, madame," answered he ; " otherwise she would
have warned your majesty that we could be overheard."

And he sprung toward Andree and raised her in his
arms.

The queen remained standing at two steps from her,
cold, pale, and trembling with anxiety.

CHAPTER XXIX.

AxDREE was gradually recovering her senses, without
knowing from whom assistance came ; but she seemed
instinctively to understand that some one had come to her
assistance.

She raised her head, and her hands grasped the unhoped-
for succor that was offered her.

But her mind did not recover as soon as her body ; it
still remained vacillating, stupefied, somnolent, during a
few minutes.

After having succeeded in recalling her to physical life,
M. de Charny attempted to restore her moral senses. But
he was struggling against a terrible and concentrated un-
consciousness.

Finally, she fastened her open but haggard eyes upon

308 TAKING THE BASTILE.

him, and with her still remaining deliriam, without recog-
nizing the person who was supporting iior, she gave a loud
shriek, and abruptly pushed him from her.

During all this time, the queen turned her eyes in an-
other direction ; she, a woman, she, whose mission it was
to console, to strengthen this afflicted friend, she aban-
doned her.

Charny raised Andree in his powerful arms, notwith-
standing the resistance she attempted to make, and turn-
ing round to the queen, who was still standing pale and
motionless :

'^ Pardon me, madame," said he, "something extraor-
dinary must doubtless have happened. Madame de Charny
is not subject to fainting, and this is the first time I have
ever seen her in this state."

" She must, then, be suffering greatly," said the queen,
who still reverted to the idea that Andree had overheard
their conversation.

" Yes, without doubt she is suffering," answered the
count, "audit is for that reason that I shall ask your
majesty the permission to have her carried to her own
apartment. She needs the assistance of her attendants."

" Do so," said the queen, raising her hand to the bell.

But scarcely had Andree heard the ringing of the
bell, when she wrestled fearfully, and cried out in her
delirium :

" Oh, Gilbert ! that Gilbert ! "

The queen trembled at the sound of this name, and the
astonished count placed his wife upon a sofa.

At this moment a servant appeared to answer the bell.

"It is nothing," said the queen, making a sign to him
with her haTid to leave the room.

Then, being once more left to themselves, the count and
the queen looked at each other. Andree had again closed
her eyes, and seemed to suffer from a second attack.

M. de Charny, who was kneeling near tkesofa, prevented
her from falling off of it.

"Gilbert!" repeated the queen. "What name is
that ? "

"Wo must inquire."

" I think I kTiow it," said Marie Antoinette ; " I think
it is not the first time I have heard the countess pronounce
that name."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 309

But as if she had been threatened by this recollection of
the queen, and that this threat had surprised her in the
midst of her convulsions, Andree opened her e3^es, stretched
out her arms to heaven, and, making a great effort, stood
upright.

Her first look, an intelligent look, was this time directed
at M. de Charny, whom she recognized, and greeted with
caressing smiles.

Then, as if this involuntary manifestation of her thought
had been unworthy of her Spartan soul, Andree turned
her eyes in another direction, and perceived the queen.

She immediately made a profound inclination.

** Ah ! good Heaven, what, then, is the matter with
you, madame ? " said M. de Charny. " You have alarmed
me — you, who are usually so strong and so courageous, to
have suffered from a swoon ? "

** Sir,^' said she, ** such fearful events have taken place
at Paris, that when men are trembling, it is by no means
strange that women should faint. Have you then left
Paris ? Oh ! you have done rightly."

** Good God ! countess,*' said Charny, in a doubting
tone, " was it, then, on my account that you underwent
all this suffering ? "

Andree again looked at her husband and the queen, but
did not answer.

" Why, certainly, that is the reason, count — why should
you doubt it?" answered Marie Antoinette. "The
Countess de Charny is not a queen : she has the right to
be alarmed for her husband's safety."

Charny could detect jealousy in the queen's language.

*•' Oh, madame," said he, '* I am quite certain that the
countess fears still more for her sovereign's safety than
for mine."

*' But, in fine," asked Marie Antoinette, *'why and how
is it that we found you in a swoon in this room, coun-
tess ? " _

" Oh ! it would be impossible for me to tell you that,
madame ; I cannot, myself, account for it ; but in this
life of fatigue, of terror, and painful emotions, which we
have led for the last three days, nothing can be more
natural, it seems to me, tlian the fainting of a woman."

" This is true," murmured tlie queen, who perceived
that Andree did not wish to be compelled to speak out.

310 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" But," rejoined Andree, in her turn, with that extraor-
dinary degree oi! calmness which never abandoned her
after she had once become the mistress of her will, and
which was so much the more embarrassing in difficult
circunirftances, that it could easily be discerned to be mere
affectation, and concealed feelings altogether human ;
** but even your majesty's eyes are at this moment
humid."

And the count thought he could perceive in the words
of his wife that ironical accent he had remarked but a few
moments previously in the language of the queen.

" Madame," said he to Andree, with a degree of severity
to which his voice was evidently not accustomed, "it
is not astonishing that the queen's eyes should be suffused
with tears, for the queen loves her people, and the blood
of the people has been shed."

** Fortunately, God has spared yours, sir,'* said Andree,
who was still no less cold and impenetrable.

''Yes ; but it is not of her majesty that we are speak-
ing, madame, but of you ; let us, then, return to our sub-
ject ; the queen permits us to do so."

Marie Antoinette made an affirmative gesture with her
head.

*' You were alarmed, then, were you not ?"

" Who, I ? "

*' You have been suffering ; do not deny it. Some acci-
dent has happened to you — what was it 'r* I know not
what it can have been, but you will tell us."

*'^You are mistaken, sir."

" Have you had any reason to complain of any one — of
a man ?"

Andree turned pale.

** I have had no reason to complain of any one, sir ; I
have just come from the king's apartment."

" Did you come direct from there ?"

'* Yes, direct. Her majesty can easily ascertain that
fact."

''If such be the case," said Marie Antoinette, "the
countess must be right. The king loves her too well, and
knows that my own affection for her is too strong for him
to disoblige her in any way whatever."

" But you mentioned a name," said Charny, still per-
sisting.

TAKING THE BASTILE. " 3H

'* A name ? "

*' Yes ; when you were recovering yonr senses.*'

Andree looked at the queen as if to ask her for assist-
ance ; but, either because the queen did not understand
her, or did not wish to do so :

''Yes," said she, "you pronounced the name, Gil-
bert."

'' Gilbert ! Did I pronounce the name of Gilbert ? "
exclaimed Andree, in a tone so full of terror that the
count was more affected by this cry than he had been by
her fainting.

''Yes ! " exclaimed he, "you pronounced that name."

"Ah, indeed !" said Andree, "that is singular."

And, by degrees, as the clouds close again, after having
been rent asunder by the lightning, the countenance of
the young woman, so violently agitated at the sound of
that fatal name, recovered its serenity, and but a few
muscles of her lovely face continued to tremble almost im-
perceptibly, like the last flashes of the tempest which
vanish in the horizon.

" Gilbert," she repeated, " I do not know that name."

"Yes, Gilbert," repeated the queen. "Come, try to
recollect, my dear Andree."

"But, madame,"said the count to Marie Antoinette,
"perhaps it is mere chance, and this name may be un-
known to the countess."

"No," said Andree, "no; it is not unknown tome.
It is that of a learned man, of a skilful physician Avho
has Just arrived from America, I believe, and who became
intimate while there with Monsieur de Lafayette."

" Well, then ? " asked the count.

"Well, tl)en," repeated Andree, with the greatest pres-
ence of mind, " I do not know him personally, but he is
said to be a very honorable man."

" Then, why all this emotion, my dear countess ? " ob-
served the queen,

" This emotion ? Have I, then, been excited ?"

" Yes ; one would have said that when you pronounced
the name Gilbert, you felt as if undergoing a torture."

" It is possible ; I will tell you how it happened. I met
a person in the king's cabinet, who was dressed in black,
a man of austere countenance, who spoke of gloomy and
horrible subjects ; he related, with the most frightful

312 TAKING THE BASTILE.

reality, the assassination of Monsienr de Lannay and
Monsieur de Flesselles. I became terrified on hearing tliis
intelligence, and I fell into the swoon in which you saw
me. It may be that I spoke at that time ; perhaps I then
pronounced the name of ^Monsieur Gilbert."

*' It is possible," repeated M. de Charny, who was
evidently not disposed to pnsh the questioning any
further. *'But now yon feel more reassured, do you not,
madame ? "

'* Completely."

" I will then beg of yon to do one thing, Monsienr de
Charny," said the queen.

" I am at the disposal of your majesty."

''Go and find out Messieurs de Bezenval, de Broglie,
and de Lambesq. Tell them to quarter their troops where
they now are. The king will decide to-morrow in council
what must then be done."

The count bowed ; but before leaving the room, he cast
a look at Andree.

That look was full of affectionate anxiety.

It did not escape the queen.

*' Countess/* said she, *' will you return to the king's
apartment with me ? "

"No, madame, no," replied Andree, quickly.

''And why not?"

" I ask your majesty's permission to withdraw to my
own apartment. The emotions I have undergone make
me feel the want of rest."

" Come, now, countess, speak frankly," said the queen.
" Have yon had any disagreement with his majesty ? "

" Oh, by no means, madame — absolutely nothing."

" Oh, tell me if anything has happened ! The king
does not always spare my friends."

" The king is, as usual, full of kindness to me ; but "

" But you have no great wish to see him. Is it not so ?
There must positively be something at the bottom of all
this, count," said the queen, with affected gaiety.

At this moment Andree directed so expressive, so sup-
licating a look at the queen — a look so full of revelations,
that tlie latter understood it was time to put an end to
this minor war.

"In fact, countess," said she, "we will leave Monsieur
de Charny to execute the commission I intrusted to him,

TAKING THE BASTILE. 313

and yon can retire or remain here, according to your
choice."

** Thank you, madame," said Andree.

"Go then. Monsieur de Charny," continued Marie
Antoinette, while she noticed the expression of gratitude
which was visible on the features of Andree.

Either the count did not perceive, or did not wish to
perceive it. He took the hand of his wife, and compli-
mented her on the return of her strength and color.

Then, making a most respectful bow to the queen, he
left the room.

But while leaving the room, he exchanged a last look
with Marie Antoinette.

The queen's look meant to say, ** Eeturn quickly."
That of the count replied, ** As soon as possible."

As to Andree, she followed with her eyes every one of
her husband's movements ; her bosom palpitating, and
almost breathless.

She seemed to accelerate with her wishes the slow and
noble step with which he approached the door. She, as
it were, pushed him out of the room with the whole power
o,f her will.

Therefore was it that, as soon as he had disappeared, all
the strength that Andree had summoned to assist her iu
surmounting the difficulties of her position abandoned
her ; her face became pale, her limbs failed beneath her,
and she fell into an armchair which was within her reach,
while she endeavored to apologize to the queen for her in-
voluntary breach of etiquette.

The queen ran to the chimney-piece, took a smelling-
bottle of salts, and made Andree inhale them, who was
soon restored to her senses ; but more by the power of her
own will than by the efficacy of the attentions she received
at the royal hands.

In fact, there was something strange in the conduct of
these two women. The queen seemed to love Andree;
Andree respected the queen greatly, and, nevertheless, at
certain moments they did not appear to be, the one an
affectionate queen, the other a devoted subject, but two
determined enemies.

As we have already said, the potent will of Andrue soon
restored her strength. She rose up, gently removed the
queen's hand, and, courtesying to her :

14— Dumas— Vol. IX.

314 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' Yonr majesty," said she, " has given me permission
to retire to my own room."

" Yes, uudoubtedly ; and you are always free, dear
countess, and this you know full well. Etiquette is not
intended for you. But before you retire, have you nothing
to tell me ? "

"I, madame ?" asked Andree.

*' Yes, you, without doubt."

*' No ; what should I have to tell you ?"

" In regard to this Monsieur Gilbert, the sight of whom
has made so strong an impression upon you."

Andree trembled, but she merely made a sigii of denial.

" In that case, I will not detain you any longer, dear
Andree ; you may go."

And the queen took a step toward the door of the dress-
ing-room, which communicated with her bedroom.

Andree, on her side, having made her obeisance to the
queen, in the most irreproachable manner, was going
toward the door.

But at the very moment she was about to open it, steps
were heard in the corridor, and a hand was placed on the
external handle of the door.

At the same time, the voice of Louis XVI. was heard,
giving orders for the night to his valet.

" The king, madame ! " said Andree, retreating several
steps, " the king ! "

''And what of that ? Yes, it is the king," said Marie
Antoinette " Does he terrify you to such a degree as this ? "

" Madame, in the name of Heaven," cried Andree, "let
me not sec the king. Let me not meet the king face to
face, at all events, this evening. I should die of shame."

*' But, finally, you will tell me "

'' Everything — yes, everything — if your majesty requires
it. But hide me!"

" Go into my boudoir," said Marie Antoinette. " Y''ou
can leave it as soon as the king himself retires. Rest as-
sured, your captivity will not be of long duration. The
king never remains here long."

" Oh, tlianks ! thanks ! " exclaimed the countess.

And rushing into the boudoir, slie disappeared, at the
very moment that the king, having opened the dour,
appeared upon the tlireshold of the chamber.
Tlie king entered.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 315

VOLUME II.

CHAPTER I.

How long the interview between Andr^e and the qneen
lasted, it would be impossible for ns to say ; bnt it was
certainly of considerable duration, for at about half-past
twelve o'clock that night the door of the queen's boudoir
was seen to open, and on the threshold, Andree, almost on
her knees, kissing the hand of Marie Antoinette.

After which, having raised herself up, the young woman
dried her eyes, red with weeping, while the queen, on her
side, re-entered her room.

Andree, on the contrary, walked away rapidly, as if she
desired to escape from her own thoughts.

After this, the queen was alone. When the lady of the
bedchamber entered the room to assist her in undressing,
she found her pacing the room with rapid strides, and her
eyes flashing with excitement.

She made a quick movement with her hand, which
meant to say, *' leave me."

The lady of the bedchamber left the room without
offering an observation.

The queen again found herself alone. She liad given
orders that no one should disturb her, unless it was to an-
nounce the arrival of important news from Paris.

Andree did not appear again.

As for the king, after he had conversed with M. de la
Rochefoucault, who endeavored to make him comprehend
the difference there was between a riot and a revolution —
he declared himself fatigued, went to bed, and slept as

?uietly as if lie had returned from a hunt, and the stag
a well-trained courtier) had suffered himself to be taken
in tlie grand basin of the fountain called the Swiss.^

The queen, however, wrote several letters, went into an
adjoining room, where her two children slept under the
care of Mme. de Tourzel, and then went to bed, not for
the sake of sleeping, like the king, but merely to meditate
more at ease.

But soon after, M'heu silence reigned around Versailles,

316 TAKING THE BASTILE.

when the immense palace became plunged in darkness,
when there could no longer be heard in the gardens aught
but the tramp of the patrols upon the gravel walks, and
in the long passages nothing but the ringing of muskets
on the marble pavement, Marie Antoinette, tired of
repose, felt the want of air, got out of bed, and putting
on her velvet slippers and a long M'hite dressing-gown,
went to the window to inhale the ascending freshness of
the cascades, and to seize in their flight those counsels
which the night winds murnvir to heated minds and
oppressed hearts.

Then she reviewed in her mind all the astounding events
which this strange day had produced.

The fall of the Bastile, that visible emblem of royal
power ; the uncertainties of Cliarny, her devoted friend ;
that impassioned captive who for so many years had
been subjected to her yoke, and who, during all those
years, had never breathed anything but love, now seemed,
for the first time, to sigh from regret and feelings of re-
morse.

With that synthetic habit with which the knowledge of
men and events endows great minds, Marie Antoinette
immediately divided the agitation which oppressed her
into two portions, the one being her political misfortunes,
the other the sorrows of her heart.

The political misfortune was that great event, the news
of which had left Paris at three o'clock in the afternoon,
and was then spreading itself over the whole world, and
weakening in every mind that sacred reverence which
until then had always been accorded to kings, God's man-
datories upon earth.

The sorrow of her heart was the gloomy resistance of
Charny to the omnipotence of his well-beloved sovereign.
It appeared to her like a presentiment, that without ceas-
ing to be faithful and devoted, his love would cease to be
blind, and might begin to argue with itself on its fidelity
and its devotedness.

This thought grieved the queen's heart poignantly, and
filled it Avith that bitter gall which is called jealousy, au
acrid poison which ulcerates at the same instant a thou-
sand little wounds in a wounded soul.

Nevertheless, grief in the presence of misfortune was
logically an inferiority.

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 317

Thus, rather from reasouing than from conscientious
motives, rather from necessity than from instinct, Marie
Antoinette first allowed her mind to enter into the erave
reflections connected with the dangerous state of political
affairs.

In which direction could she turn ? Before her lay
hatred and ambition — weakness and indifference at her
side.

For enemies, she had people who, having commenced
with calumny, were now organizing a rebellion.

People whom, consequently, no consideration would in-
duce to retreat.

For defenders — we speak of the greater portion at least
of those men who, little by little, had accustomed them-
selves to endure everything, and who, in consequence, no
longer felt the depth of their wounds — their degradation ;
people who would hesitate to defeiid themselves, for fear
of attracting attention.

It was, therefore, necessary to bury everything in obliv-
ion— to appear to forget, and yet to remember — to feign
to forgive, and yet not pardon.

This would be conduct unworthy of a queen of France ;
it was especially unworthy of the daughter of Marie
Theresa — that high-minded woman.

To resist I to resist ! — that was what offended royal
pride most strenuously counseled. But was it prudent to
resist ? Could hatred be calmed down by shedding blood ?
Was it not terrible to be surnamed "The Austrian?*'
Was it necessai'y, in order to consecrate that name, as
Isabeau and Catherine de Medici had consecrated theirs,
to give it the baptism of a universal massacre ?

And then, if what Charny had said was true, success
was doubtful.

To combat and to be defeated !

Such were the political sorrows of the queen, who, dur-
ing certain phases of her meditation, felt a sensation like
that which wo experience on seeing a serpent glide from
beneath the brambles, awakened by our advancing steps.
She felt, on emerging from the depths of her sufferings as
a queen, the despair of the woman who thinks herself but
little loved, when in reality she had been loved too much,

Charny had said what wo have already heard him say,
not from conviction, but from lassitude. lie had, like

318 TAKING THE BASTILE.

many others, drunk calumny from the same cup that she
had. Cluirny, for the first time, had spoken in such
affectionate terms of his wife, Andree being until then
almost forgotten by her husband. Had Charny then per-
ceived that his young wife was still beautiful ? And at
this single idea, which stung her like the envenomed bite
of the asp, Marie Antoinette was astounded to find that
misfortune was nothing in comparison with sorrow.

For wluit misfortune had failed to do, grief was grad-
ually effecting within her soul. The woman sprung furi-
ously from tlie chair in which the queen had calmly con-
templated danger.

The whole destiny of this privileged child of suffer-
ing revealed itself in the condition of her mind during
that night.

For, how was it possible to escape misfortune and grief
at the same time ? she would ask herself, with constantly
renewing anguish. Was it necessary to determine on
abandoning a life of royalty, and could she live happily
in a state of mediocrity ? — was it necessary to return to
her own Trianon and to her Swiss cottage, to the quiet
shores of the lake and the humble amusements of the
dairy ? — was it necessary to allow the people to divide
among them the shreds of monarchy, excepting some few
fragments which the woman could appropriate to herself
from the contested revenues of a few faitliful servants,
who would still persist in considering themselves her
vassals ?

Alas ! it was now that the serpent of jealousy began to
sting still deeper.

Happy ! Could she be happy with the humiliation of
despised love ?

Happy ! Could she be happy by the side of the king —
that vulgar husband, in whom everything was deficient to
form tl)o hero ?

Happy ! Could she be happy with M. de Charny, who
might be so with some woman whom he loved — by the side
of his own wife, perhaps ?

And this thought kindled in the poor qiieen's breast all
those flaming torches which consumed l)ido even more
than her funeral pile.

But in the midst of this feverish torture she saw a ray
of hope ; in the midst of this shuddering anguish she felt

TAKING THE BASTILE. 319

a sensation of joy. God, in His infinite mercy, has He
not created evil to make us appreciate good ?

Andree had intrusted the queen with all her secrets ; she
had unveiled the one shame of her life to her rival. An-
dree, her eyes full of tears, her head bowed down to the
ground, liad confessed to the queen that she was no longer
worthy of the love and the respect of an honorable man ;
therefore, Charny could never love Andree.

But Charny is ignorant of this. Charny will ever be
ignorant of that catastrophe at Trianon, and its conse-
quences. Therefore, to Charny it is as if the catastrophe
had never taken place.

And while making these reflections, the queen examined
her fading beauty in the mirror of her mind, and deplored
the loss of her gayety, the freshness of her youth.

Then she thought of Andree, of the strange and almost
incredible adventures which she had just related to her.

She wondered at the magical working of blind fortune,
which had brought to Trianon, from the shade of a hut
and the muddy furrows of a farm, a little gardener's boy,
to associate his destinies with those of a highly born young
lady, who was herself associated with the destinies of a
queen.

" Thus," said slie to herself, ''the atom which was thus
lost in the lowest regions has come, by a freak of superior
attraction, to unite itself, like a fragment of a diamond,
with the heavenly light of the stars."

This gardener's boy, this Gilbert, was he not a living
symbol of tluit whicii Avas occurring at that moment — a
man of the people, rising from the lowness of his birth to
busy himself with the politics of a great kingdom ; a
strange comedian, in whom were personified, by a privilege
grunted to him by the evil spirit who was then hovering
over France, not only the insult offered to the nobility,
but also the attack made upon the monarchy by a plebeian
mob.

This Gilbert, now become a learned man — this Gilbert,
dressed in the black coat of the Tiers Etat, the counselor
of M. de Necker, the confidant of the King of France,
would now find himself, thanks to the revolution, on an
equal footing with the woman whose honor, like a thief,
he had stolen in the night.

The queen had again become a woman, and, shuddering

320 TAKING THE BASTILE.

in spite of herself at the sad story related by Andree, she
was eudeavoriug to stndy the character of tliis Gilbert,
and to learn by herself to read in human features what
God had phiced there to indicate so strange a character ;
and, notwithstanding the pleasure she had experienced on
seeing the humiliation of her rival, she still felt a linger-
ing desire to attack the man who had caused a woman
such intensity of suffering.

Moreover, notwithstauding the terror generally inspired
by the sigiit of monsters, she felt a desire to look at, and
perhaps even to admire, this extraordinary man who by a
crime had infused his vile blood into the most aristocratic
veins in France ; this man who appeared to have organized
the revolution, in order that it should open the gates of
the Bustile for him, in which, but for that revolution, he
would have remained immured forever, to teach him that
a plebeian must remember nothing.

In consequence of this connecting link in her ideas, the
queen reverted to her political vexations, and saw the
responsibility of all she had suffered accumulate upon one
single head.

Thus the author of the popular rebellion that had just
shaken the royal power by leveling the Bastile, was Gil-
bert ; he whose principles had placed weapons in the
hands of the Billots, the Maillards, the Elies, and the
Hullins.

Gilbert was, therefore, both a venomous and a terrible
being — venomous, because he had caused the loss of Andree
as a lover ; terrible, because he had just assisted in over-
throwing the Bastile as an enemy.

It was, therefore, necessary to know, in order to avoid
him ; or, rather, to know him, in order to make use of him.

It was necessary, at any cost, to converse with this man,
to examine him closely, and to judge him personally.

Two thirds of the night had already flown away, three
o'clock was striking, and the first rays of the rising sun
gilded the high tops of the trees in the park, and the
summits of the statues of Versailles.

Tlie queen had passed the whole night without sleeping ;
her dimmed vision lost itself in the shaded streaks of the
mild light.

A heavy and burning' slumber gradually seized the un-
fortunate woman.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 321.

She fell back, with her neck overhanging the back of the
armchair, near the open window.

She dreamed that she was walking in Trianon, and that
there appeared to her eyes, at the extremity of a flower-
bed, a grinning gnome, similar to those we read of in
German ballads ; that this sardonic monster was Gilbert,
who extended his hooked fingers toward her.

She screamed aloud.

Another cry answered hers.

That cry roused her from her slumber.

It was Mme. de Tourzel who had uttered it. She had
just entered the queen's apartment, and seeing her ex-
hausted and gasping in an armchair, she could not avoid
giving utterance to her grief and surprise.

''The queen is indisposed!" she exclaimed. "The
queen is suffering. Shall I send for a physician ? "

The queen opened her eyes. This question of Mme. de
Tourzel coincided with the demands of her own curiosity.

" Yes, a physician ! " she replied. " Doctor Gilbert !—
send for Doctor Gilbert ! "

" Who is Doctor Gilbert ? *' asked Mme. de Tourzel.

'' A new physician, appointed by the king only yester-
day, I believe, and just arrived from America."

''I know who her majesty means," said one of the
queen's ladies-in-waiting, who had rushed into the room
on hearing Mme. de Tourzel scream.

" Well ? " said the queen inquiringly.

"Well, madame, the doctor is in the king's ante-
chamber."

" Do you know him, then ?"

"Yes, your majesty," stammered the woman.

" But how can you know him ? He arrived here from
America some eight or ten days ago, and only came out
of the Bastile yesterday."

" I know him."

"Answer me distinctly. Where did you know him ?"
asked the queen, in an imperious tone.

The lady cast down her eyes.

" Come, will you make up your mind to tell me how it
happens that you know this man ?"

" Madame, I have read his works ; and his works hav-
ing given me a desire to see the author, I had him pointed
out to me."

322 TAKING THE BASTILE.

** Ah ! " exclaimed the queen, with an indescribable
look of haughtiness and reserve — " ah ! it is well. Since
you kuow liim, go and tell him that I am suffering, and
that I wish to see him."

While waiting for the doctor's arrival, the queen made
her ladies in attendance enter the room ; after which she
put on a dressing-gown and adjusted her hair.

CHAPTER II.

A FEW moments after the queen had expressed the above
desire, a desire which the person to whom it had been
mentioned had complied with, Gilbert, who felt astonished,
slightly anxious, and profoundly agitated, but still with-
out showing any external marks of it, Gilbert presented
himself to Marie Antoinette.

The firm and noble carriage, the delicate pallor of the
man of science and of thought, to whom study had given a
second nature — a pallor still more enhanced by the black
dress which was not only worn by all the deputies of the
Tiers Etat, but also by those who had adopted the prin-
ciples of the revolution ; the delicate white hand of the
surgical operator, surrounded by a plain muslin wrist-band ;
his slender though well-formed limbs, which none of those
at court could surpass in symmetry, even in the estimation
of the connoisseurs of the Q^]il de Bocuf ; combijied with
all these, there was a mixture of respectful timidity to-
ward the woman, and of calm courage toward the patient,
but no signs of servility toward her as a queen. Such
Avere the plainly written signs that Marie Antoinette, with
her aristocratic intelligence, could perceive in the coun-
tenance of Gilbert, at the moment when the door opened to'
admit him into her bcd-cluinibcr.

But the less Gilbert was ])rovoking in his demeanor, the
more did the queen feel her anger increase. She had
figured him to herself as a type of an odious class of men ;
she had considered him instinctively, though almost invol-
untarily, as one of those impudent heroes of which she
had so many around her. The author of the sufferings of
Andri'iO, tlie bastard pupil of Rousseau, that miserable
abortion who hat! grown u)) to manhood, that pruncr of
trees who had become a philosopher and a subduer of souls

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 323

— Marie Antoinette, in spite of herself, depicted him in
her mind as having the features of Mirabean — that is to
say, of the man she most hated, after the Cardinal de
Eohan and Lafayette.

It had seemed to her, before she saw Gilbert, that it re-
quired a gigantic physical development to contain so
colossal a mind.

But when she saw a young, upright, and slender man,
of elegant and graceful form, of sweet and amiable couat-
enance, he appeared to her as having committed the new
crime of belying himself by his exterior. Gilbert, a man
of the people, of obscure and unknown birth ! Gilbert,
the peasant, the clown, and the serf ! — Gilbert was guilty,
in the eyes of the queen, of having usurped the external
appearance of a gentleman and a man of honor. The
proud Austrian, the sworn enemy of lying and deception
in others, became indignant, and immediately conceived a
violent hatred for the unfortunate atom whom so many
different motives combined to induce her to abhor.

For those who were intimate with her nature, for those
who were accustomed to read in her eyes either serenity
of temper or indications of an approaching storm, it was
easy to discern that a tempest, full of thunder-claps and
flashes of lightning, was raging in the depths of her
heart.

But how was it possible for a human being, even a wo-
man, to follow, in the midst of this hurricane of passions
and anger, the succession of strange and contrasting
feelings which clashed together in the queen's brain and
filled her breast with all the mortal poisons described by
Homer ?

The queen, with a single look, dismissed all her attend-
ants, even Mme. de Misery.

They immediately left the room.

The queen waited till the door had been closed on the
last person. Then casting her eyes upon Gilbert, she
perceived tliat he had not ceased to gaze at her.

So much audacity offended her. The doctor's look was
apparently inoffensive ; but, as it was continual, and
seemed full of design, it weighed heavily upon her.

Marie Antoinette felt compelled to repress its impor-
tunity.

** Well, then, sir," said she, with the abruptness of a

324 TAKING THE BASTILE.

pistol-shot, " what are you doing there, standing before
me and gazing at me, instead of telling me with what
complaint I am suffering ? "

Tills furious apostrophe, rendered more forcible by the
flashing of her eyes, would have annihilated any of the
queen's courtiei-s — it would even have compelled a marshal
of France, a hero, or a demi-god, to fall on his knees
before her.

But Gilbert tranquilly replied:

" It is by means of the eyes, madame, that the physi-
cian must first examine his patient. By looking at your
majesty, who sent for me, I do not satisfy an idle cnriosity
— I exercise my profession — I obey your orders."

" Then you must have studied me sufficiently."

'• As much as lay in my power, madame."

" Am I ill ? "

" Not in the strict sense of the word. But your majesty
is suffering from great over-excitement."

*' Ah ! ah ! " said Marie Antoinette ironically, '' why do
you not say at once that I am in a passion ? "

"■ Let your majesty allow me, since you have ordered the
attendance of a physician, to express myself in medical
terms."

" Be it so. But wluit is the cause of my over-excite-
ment ? "

** Your majesty has too much knowledge not to be
aware that the physician discovers the sufferings of the
body, thanks to his experience and the traditions of hia
studies ; but he is not a sorcerer, who can discover at first
sight the depths of the human soul."

"By this you mean to imply that the second or third
time you could tell me not only from what I am suffering,
but also what are my thoughts ?"

*' Perhaps so, madame," coldly replied Gilbert.

The queen appeared to tremble with anger ; her words
seemed to be hanging on her lips, ready to burst forth in
burning torrents.

She, however, restrained herself.

" I must believe you," said she, ''you who are a learned
man."

And she emphasized these last words with so much con-
tempt, that the eye of (iilbcrt appeared to kindle, in its
turn, with the fire of anger.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 325

But a struggle of a few seconds' duration sufficed to
this man to give bim a complete victory.

Accordingly, with a calm brow, and unembarrassed ex-
pression, he almost immediately rejoined :

** It is too kind of your majesty to give me the title of a
learned man, without having received any proofs of my
knowledge."

The queen bit her lip.

*' You must understand that I do not know if you are a
scientific man," she replied; ''but I have heard it said,
and I repeat what everybody says."

" Well, then," said Gilbert, respectfully, and bowing
still lower than he had done hitherto, *' a superior mind
like that of your majesty must not blindly repeat what is
said by the vulgar."

*'Do you mean the people ?" said the queen, insolently.

*' The vulgar, madame," repeated Gilbert, with a firm-
ness which made the blood thrill in the queen's veins, and
gave rise to emotions which were as painful to her as they
had hitherto been unknown.

'* lu fine," answered she, " let us not discuss that point.
You are said to be learned, that is all that is essential.
Where have you studied ? "

*' Everywliere, madame."

" That is not an answer."

** Nowhere, then."

'' I prefer that answer. Have you studied nowhere ?"

" As it may please you, madame," replied the doctor,
bowing, *' and yet it is less exact than to say everywhere."

'' Come, answer me, then," exclaimed the queen, becom-
ing exasperated ; '' and, above all, for Heaven's sake, Mon-
sieur Gilbert, spare me such phrases."

Then, as if speaking to herself :

*' Everywhere ! everywhere ! what does that mean ? It
is the language of a charlatan, a quack, of a physician who
practises in the public squares ! Do you mean to overawe
me by your sonorous syllables ?"

She stepped forward witli ardent eyes and quivering
lips.

"Everywhere! Mention some place; come, explain
your moaning, Monsieur Gilbert."

"I said everywhere," answered Gilbert, coldly, "be-
cause, in fact, I have studied everywhere, madame ; in the

'326 TAKING THE BASTILE.

hut and in the palace, in cities and iu tlie desert, upon our
own species and upon animals, upon myself and upon others,
in a manner suitable to one who loves knowledge and
studies it where it is to be found, tliat is to say, every-
where."

The queen, overcome, cast a terrible glance at Gilbert,
while he, on his part, was eying her with terrible perseve-
rance. She became convulsively agitated, and, turning
round, upset a small stand, upon whicli her chocolate had
been served up in a cup of Sevres porcelain. Gilbert saw
the table fall, saw the broken cup, but did not move a
finger.

The color mounted to the cheeks of Marie Antoinette ;

she raised her cold, moist hand to her burning temples,

but did not dare to raise her eyes again to look on Gilbert.

But her features assumed a more contemptuous, more

insolent expression than before.

"Then, under what great master did you study ?" con-
tinued the queen, again taking up the conversation at the
point where she had left off.

" I hardly know how to answer your majesty, without
running the risk of again wounding your majesty."

The queen perceived the advantage that Gilbert had
given her, and threw herself upon it like a lioness upon
Ber prey.

''Wound me — you wound me — you !" exclaimed she.
" Oh, sir, what are you saying there ? — you wound a
queen ! You are mistaken, sir, I can affirm to you. Ah !
Doctor Gilbert, and you have not studied the French lan-
guage in as good schools as yon have studied medicine ;
people of my station are not to be wounded, Doctor Gilbert ;
you may weary them, that is all."

Gilbert bowed, and made a step toward the door ; but it
was not possible for the queen to discover in his countenance
the least show of anger, the least sign of impatience.

The queen, on the contrary, was stamping her feet with
rage ; she sprung toward Gilbert as if to prevent him from
leaving the room.
He understood her.

" Pardon me, madame," said ho, " it is true. I com-
mitted the unpardonable error to forget tlnit as a physician
I was called to see a patient. Forgive me, madame ; here-
after I shall remember it." And he came back.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 327

" Your majesty," continued he, " is rapidly approaching
a nervous crisis. I will venture to ask you not to give way
to it ; for in a short time it would be beyond your power to
control it. At this moment, your pulse must be imper-
ceptible, the blood is rushing to the heart ; your majesty
is suffering, your majesty is almost suffocating, and per-
haps it would be prudent for you to summon one of your
ladies-in-waiting."

The queen took a turn round the round, and seating
herself :

" Is your name Gilbert ? " asked she.

" Yes, Gilbert, madame."

" Strange ! I remember an incident of my youth, the
strange nature of which would doubtless wound you much,
were I to relate it to you. But it matters not ; for if hurt,
you will soon cure yourself — you who are no less a philoso-
pher than a learned physician."

And the queen smiled ironically.

" Precisely so, madame," said Gilbert ; ''you may smile,
and, little by little, subdue your nervousness by irony. It is
one of the most beautiful prerogatives of the intelligent will,
to be able thus to control itself. Subdue it, madame, subdue
it ; but, however, without making a too violent effort."

This prescription of the physician was given with so much
suavity and such natural good-humor, that the queen, while
feeling the bitter irony contained in his words, could not
take offense at what Gilbert had said to her.

She merely returned to tlie charge, recommencing the
attacks where she had discontinued them.

" This incident of which I spoke," continued she, '' is
the following."

Gilbert bowed, as a sign that he was listening.

The queen made an effort, and fixed her gaze upon him.

*' I was the dauphiness at that time, and I inhabited Tri-
anon. There was in the gardens a little, dark-looking, dirty
boy, covered, with mud, a crabbed boy^ a sort of sour Jean
Jacques, who weeded, dug, and picked off the caterpillars
with his little crooked fingers. His name was Gilbert."

" It was myself, madame," said Gilbert phlegmatically.

" You ! " said Marie Antoinette, with an expression of
hatred. " I was, then, right ; but you are, then, a learned

man ? "

" I think that, as your majesty's memory is so good, yon

328 TAKING THE BASTILE.

must also remember dates," rejoined Gilbert. " It was in
1772, if I am not mistaken, that the little gardener's boy
of whom your majesty speaks weeded the flower-beds of
Trianon to earn liis bread. We are now in 1789. It is, there-
fore, seventeen years, madame, since the events to which
you alhule took place. It is more time than is necessary to
metamorphose a savage into a learned man ; the soul and
the mind operate quickly in certain positions, like plants
and flowers which grow rapidly in hothouses. Revolutions,
madame, are the hotbeds of the mind. Your majesty
looks at me, and notwithstanding the perspicacity of your
scrutiny, you do not perceive that the boy of sixteen has
become a man of thirty-three ; you are, therefore, wrong
to wonder that the ignorant, the ingenuous little Gilbert
should, after having witnessed these revolutions, have be-
come a learned man and a philosopher."

" Ignorant ! be it so ; but ingenuous — ingenuous, did
yon say ? " furiously cried the queen, " I think you called
tliat little Gilbert ingenuous."

" If I am mistaken, madame, or if I praised this little boy
for a quality which he did not possess, I do not know how
your majesty can have ascertained more correctly than my-
self that lie had the opposite defect."

" Oh ! tliat is quite another matter," said the queen,
gloomily ; " perhaps we shall speak of that some other time ;
but in the meantime let me speak of the learned man, of
tlie man brought to perfection, of the perfect man I see
before me."

Gilbert did not take up the word perfect. He understood
but too well that it was a new insult.

Let us return to our subject, madame," replied Gilbert ;
** tell me for what purpose did your majesty order me to
come to her apartment ? "

" You propose to become the king's physician," said she.
"Now you must understand, sir, that I attach too much
importance to the health of my husband to trust it in the
hands of a man whom I do not know perfectly."

" I offered myself to the king, madame," said Gilbert,
"and I was accepted, without your majesty having any
just cause to conceive the least suspicion as to my capacity
or want of zeal. I am, above all, a political physician, ma-
dame, recommended by Monsieur Neckor. As for the rest,
if the king is ever in want of my science, I shall prove my-

TAKING THE BASTILE. 329

self a good physical doctor, so far as human science can be
of use to the Creator's works. But what I shall be to the
king, more particularly, besides being a good adviser, and
a good physician, is a good friend.'*

*' A good friend ! " exclaimed the queen, with a fresh
outburst of contempt. ** You, sir, a friend of the king ! '*

''Certainly," replied Gilbert, quietly ;'* why not, ma-
dame ? "

" Oh, yes ; all in virtue of your secret power, by the
assistance of your occult science," murmured she, "who
can tell ? We have already seen the Jacques and the
Maillotins ; perhaps we shall go back to the dark ages.
You have resuscitated philters and charms. You will soon
govern France by magic, you will be a Faust or a Nicholas
Flamel."

I have no such pretensions, madame.'*
And why have you not, sir ? How many monsters
more cruel than those of the gardens of Armida, more cruel
than Cerberus himself, would you not put to sleep on the
threshold of our hell ? '*

When she had pronounced the words, "would you not
put to sleep," the queen cast a scrutinizing look on the
doctor.

This time Gilbert blushed, in spite of himself.

It was a source of indescribable joy to Marie Antoinette ;
she felt that, this time, the blow she had struck had inflict-
ed a real wound.

*' For you have the power of causing sleep ; you who
have studied everything and everywhere, you doubtless have
studied magnetic science with the magnetizers of our cen-
tury, who make sleep a treacherous instrument, and who
read their secrets in the sleep of others ! "

" In fact, madame, I have often, and for a long time,
studied under the learned Cagliostro."

" Yes ; he who practised and made his followers practise
that moral theft of which I was just speaking ; the same
who, by the aid of that magic sleep which I call infamous,
robbed some of their souls and others of their bodies."

Gilbert again understood her meaning, but this time h^
turned pale, instead of reddening. The queen trembled
with joy to the very depths of her heart.

"Ah! wretch!" murmured she to herself, "I have
wounded jou, and I can see the blood."

830 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Bnt the profoundest emotions were never visible for any
length of time on the countenance of Gilbert. Approach-
ing the queen, therefore, who, quite joyful on account of
her victory, was imprudently looking at him :

''Madame," said he, "your majesty would be wrong to
deny the learned men of whom you have been speaking
the most beautiful appendage to their science, which is
the power of throwing, not victims, but subjects, into a
magnetic sleep ; you would be wrong, in particular, to
contest the right they have to follow up, by all possible
means, a discovery of which the laws, once recognized
and regulated, are perhaps intended to revolutionize the
world."

And while approaching the queen, Gilbert had looked
at her, in his turn, with that power of will to which the
nervous Andree had succumbed.

The queen felt a chill run through her veins as he drew
nearer to her.

"lufamy," said she, " be the reward of those men who
make an abuse of certain dark and mysterious arts to ruin
both the soul and body. May infamy rest upon the head
of Cagliostro ! "

*' Ah ! " replied Gilbert, with the accent of conviction,
''beware, madame, of judging the faults committed by
human beings with so much severity."

" Sir "

'' Every one is liable to err, madame ; all human beings
commit injuries on their fellow-creatures, and were it not
for individual egotism, which is the foundation of general
safety, the world would become but one great battle-field.
Those are the best who are good, that is all. Others will
tell you that those are best who are the least faulty. In-
dulgence must be the greater, madame, in proportion to
the elevated rank of the judge. Seated as you are on so
exalted a throne, you have less right than any other ]^cr-
son to be severe toward the faults of others. On your
worldly throne, you should be supremely indulgent, like
God. who, upon Ilis heavenly throne, is supremely mer-
ciful."

" Sir," said the queen, "I view my rights in a difTeront
liglit from you, and especially my duties. I am on the
throne to punish or reward."

" 1 do not think so, madame. In my opinion, on the

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 331

contrary, yon are seated on the throne, you, a woman and
a queen, to conciliate and to forgive."

*' I suppose you are not moralizing, sir."

** You are right, madame, as I was only replying to
your majesty. This Cagliostro, for instance, madame, of
whom you were speaking a few moments since — and whose
science you were contesting — I remember — and this is a
remembrance of something anterior to your recollection
of Trianon — I remember that in the gardens of the Cha-
teau de Taverney he had occasion to give the Dauphiness
of Franco a proof of his science — I know not what it was,
madame — but you must recollect it well ; for that proof
made a profound impression upon her, even so much as to
cause her to faint."

Gilbert was now striking blows in his turn ; it is true
that he was dealing them at random, but he was favored
by chance, and they hit the mark so truly that the queen
became pale.

"Yes," said she, in a hoarse voice, **yes, he made me
see, as in a dream, a hideous machine ; but I know not
that, up to the present time, such a machine has ever
really existed."

*' I know not what he made you see, madame," rejoined
Gilbert, who felt satisfied with the effect he had pro-
duced ; " but I do know that it is impossible to dispute
the appellation of learned to a man who wields such a
power as that over his fellow-creatures."

" His fellow-creatures ! " murmured the queen, disdain-
fully.

" Be it so ; I am mistaken," replied Gilbert ; *'and his
power is so much the more wonderful, that it reduces to
a level with himself, under the yoke of fear, the heads of
monarchs and princes of the earth,"

** Infamy ! infamy ! I say again, upon those who
take advantage of the weakness or the credulity of
others."

*' Infamous ! — did you call infamous those who make
use of science ? "

"Their science is nothing but chimeras, lies, and cow-
ardice !"

""What mean you by that, madame?" asked Gilbert,
calmly.

" My meaning is that this Cagliostro is a cowardly

332 TAKING THE BASTILE.

mountebank, and that his pretended magnetic sleep is a

crime."

*' A crime?"

** Yes, a crime/' continued the queen; "for it is the
result of some potion, some philter, some poison — and
human justice, which I represent, will be able to discover
the mystery and punish the inventor."

*' ]\ladame ! madame !" rejoined Gilbert, with the same
patience as before, "a, little indulgence, I beg, for those
who have erred."

" Ah ! you confess their guilt, then ?'*

The queen was mistaken, and thought from the mild
tone of Gilbert's voice tliat he was supplicating pardon for
himself.

She was in error, and Gilbert did not allow the ad-
vantage she had thus given him to escape.

" What ?" said he, dilating his flashing eyes, before the
gaze of which Marie Antoinette was compelled to lower
hers, as if suddenly dazzled by the rays of tiie sun.

Tlie queen remained confounded for a moment, and
then, making an effort to speak :

" A queen can no more be questioned than she can be
wounded," said she; "learn to know that also, you who
have but so newly arrived at court. But you were speak-
ing, it seems to me, of those who have erred, and j'oa
asked mo to be indulgent toward them."

"Alas ! madame," said Gilbert, "where is the human
creature who is not liable to reproach ? Is it he who has
ensconced himself so closely within the deep shell of his
conscience that the look of others cannot penetrate it?
Is it this which is so often denominated virtue ? Be in-
dulgent, madame."

" But according to this opinion, then," replied the
queen imprudently, ** there is no virtuous being in your
estimation, sir ; yon, who are the pupil of those men
whose prying eyes seek the truth, even in the dee2)e3t
recesses of the human conscience."

" It is true, madame."

She laughed, and without seeking to conceal the con-
tempt which her laughter expressed.

** Oh ! pray, sir," exclaimed she, " do remember that
yon are not now speaking on a public square, to idxots, to
peasants, or to patriots."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 333

'* I am aware to whom I am speaking, madarae, of this
you may be fully persuaded," replied Gilbert.

'* Show more respect, then, sir, or more adroitness ;
consider your past life — search the depths of that con-
science which men who have studied everywhere must
possess in common with the rest of mankind, notwith-
standing their genius and their wisdom — recall to your
mind all that you may have conceived that was vile, hurtful,
and criminal — all the cruelties, the deeds, the crimes
even, you have committed. Do not interrupt me ; and
when you have summed up all your misdeeds, learned
doctor, you will bow down your head, and become more
humble. Do not approach the dwelling of kings with
such insolent pride, who, until there is a new order of
things, were established by Heaven to penetrate the souls
of criminals, to examine the folds of the human conscience,
and to inflict chastisement upon the guilty, without pity
and without appeal.

" That, sir," continued the queen, '' is what you ought
to do. You will be thought the better of, on account of
your repentance. Believe me, the best mode of healing a
soul so diseased as yours would be to live in solitude, far
from the grandeurs which give men false ideas of their
own worth. I would advise you, therefore, not to ap-
proach the court, and to abandon the idea of attending the
king during sickness. You have a cure to accomplish, for
which God will esteem you more than for any other — the
cure of yourself. Antiquity had a proverb which expressed
the following maxim, sir, ' Ipse cura medici.'"

Gilbert, instead of being irritated at this proposal,
which the queen considered as the most disagreeable of
conclusions, replied, with gentleness :

*' Madame, I have already done all that your majesty
advises."

'' And what have you done, sir ?"

**I have meditated."

'' Upon yourself ? "

"Yes, upon myself, madame."

** And in regard to your conscience ? "

"Especially on the subject of my conscience, madame."

*' Do you think, then, I am sufficiently well informed
of what you saw in it ? "

''1 do not know what your majesty means by those

334 TAKING THE BASTILE.

words, but I think I can discover their meaniug, which is,
' How many times a man of my age must have olfeuded
God.*"

"■ Really — you speak of God ?**

''Yes."

"Yon !"

"AVhynot?"

" A philosopher ? Do philosophers believe in the
existence of a God ? "

"I speak of God, and I believe in Him."

" And you are still determined not to withdraw from
court ?"

"No, madame ; I remain."

And the queen's countenance assumed a threatening ex-
pression, which it would be impossible to describe.

" Oh ! I have reflected much upon the subject, madame,
and reflections have led me to know that 1 am not less
worthy than another ; every one has his faults. I learned
this axiom, not by pondering over books, but by searching
the consciences of others."

"You are universal and infallible, are you not ?" said
the queen, ironically.

"Alas I madame, if I am not universal, if I am not in-
fallible, I am, ucverthcloss, very learned in human misery,
well versed in the greatest sorrows of the mind. And this
is so true, that I could tell, by merely seeing the livid
circle round your wearied eyes, by merely seeing the line
which extends from one eyebrow to the other, by merely
seeing at the corners of your month a contraction which
is called by the prosaic name of wrinkle — I can tell you,
madame, how many severe trials you have undergone, how
many times your heart has palpitated with anguish, toliow
many secret dreams of jo}' your heart has abandoned itself,
to discover its error oil awaking.

"I will tell you all that, nuulame, when you shall desire
it ; I will tell it you, for I am sure of not being contradicted.
I will tell it you, by merely fastening ujion yon a gaze
which can road and wishes to read your mind ; and wliea
you have felt the power of that gaze, when you liave felt
the weight of this curiosity sounding to your inmost soul,
like the sea that feels the weight of the lead that plunges
into its depths, then you will understand that I am able
to do much, madame, and that if 1 pause awhile, you

TAKING THE BASTILE. 835

should be grateful to me for it, instead of provoking me

p
on to war

This language, supported by a terrible fixity of the will
of provocation, exercised by man upon the woman — this
contempt for all etiquette in presence of the queen, pro-
duced an unspeakable effect upon Marie Antoinette.

She felt as if a mist were overshadowing her brow, and
sending an icy chill through her ideas ; she felt her hatred
turning into fear ; and letting her hands fall heavily by
her side, retreated a step to avoid the approach of the un-
known danger.

" And now, madame," said Gilbert, who clearly
perceived all that was passing in her mind, ''do you un-
derstand that it would be very easy for me to discover that
which you conceal from everybody, and that which you
conceal even from yourself ; do you understand that it
would be easy for me to stretch you on that chair, which
your finders are now instinctively seeking as a support ? "

" Ah 1 " exclaimed the queen, who was terrified, for she
felt an unknown chill invading even her heart.

" Were I but to utter to myself a Avord which I will not
utter," continued Gilbert, " were I but to summon up my
will, which I renounce, you would fall as if thunder-
stricken into my power. You doubt what I am telling
you, madame. Oh ! do not doubt it ; you might perhaps
tempt me once — and if once you tempted me. But no,
you do not doubt it, do you ? "

The queen, almost on the point of falling, exhausted,
oppressed, and completely lost, grasped the back of her
armchair with all the energy of despair and the rage of
useless resistance.

" Oh !" continued Gilbert, "mark this Avell, madame ;
it is, that if I were not the most respectful, the most de-
voted, the most humbleof your subjects, I should convince
you by a terrible experiment. Oh ! you need fear nothing.
I prostrate myself humbly before the woman, rather than
before the queen. I tremble at the idea of entertainiiig
any project which might, even in the slightest way, in-
quire into your thoughts ; I would rather kill myself than
disturb your soul."

" Sir ! sir I" exclaimed the queen, striking the air with
her arms, as if to repel Gilbert, who was standing more
than three paces from her.

336 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"And still," contiimed Gilbert, ''yon caused me to be
thrown into tlie Bastile. You only regret that it is taken,
because the people, by taking it, reopened its gates for
me. There is hatred visible in your eyes, toward a man
against whom personally you can have no cause of reproach.
And see, now, I feel that since 1 have lessened the inllu-
ence by means of which I have controlled yon, you are
perhaps resuming your doubts with your returning respi-
ration."

In fact, since Gilbert had ceased to control her Avith his
eyes and gestures, Marie Antoinette had reassumed her
tlireatening attitude, like the bird, which, being freed
from the suffocating influence of the air-pumj), endeavors
to regain its song and its power of wing.

"Ah ! yon still doubt; you are ironical ; you despise
my warnings. Well, then, do you wish me to tell you,
madaine, a terrible idea that has just crossed my mind ?
This is what I was on the point of doing. Madame, I was
just about to compel you to reveal to me your most intimate
troubles, your most hidden secrets. I thought of compel-
ling you to write them down on the table which you touch
at this moment, and afterward, when you had awakened
and come to your senses again, I should have convinced
you by your own writing of the existence of that power
which you seen to contest ; and also how real is the for-
bearance, and, shall I say it ? — yes, I will say it — the
generosity of the man whom you have just insulted, whom
you have insulted for a whole hour, without his having
for a single instant given you either a reason or a pretext
for BO doing."

" Compel me to sleep ! compel me to speak in my sleep
— me ! me ! " exclaimed the queen, turning quite pale.
" "Would you have dared to do it, sir ? But do you know
what that is ? Do you know the grave nature of the
threat you make ? Why, it is the crime of high
treason, sir. Consider it well. It is a crime which, after
awakening from my sleep, I should have punished with
death."

" Madame," said Gilbert, watching the feverish emo-
tions of the queen, "be not so hasty in accusing, and
especially in threatening. Certainly, I should have pos-
gesaed myself of all your secrets ; but be convinced that it
would not have been on an occasion like this ; it would

TAKING THE BASTILE. 337

not have been during an interview between the queen and
licr subject, between a woman and a stranger. No ; I
should have put the queen to sleep, it is true — and noth-
ing would have been easier — but I should not have ven-
tured to put her to sleep, I should not have allowed myself
to speak to her, without having a witness."

" A witness ? "

" Yes, madame, a witness, who would faithfully note all
your words, all your gestures, all the details, in short, of
the scene which 1 should have brought about, in order
that, after its termination, you could not doubt for a
single moment longer."

" A witness, sir ! " repeated the queen, terrified ; "and
who would that witness have been ? But consider it ma-
turely, sir, your crime would then have been doubled, for
in that case you would have had an accomplice."

*' And if this accomplice, madame, had been none other
than the king ? " said Gilbert.

*'The king !" exclaimed Marie Antoinette, with an ex-
pression of fear that betrayed the wife more energetically
than the confession of the somnambulist could have done.
*' Oh, Monsieur Gilbert ! Monsieur Gilbert ! "

" The king," continued Gilbert, calmly, " the king is
your husband, your supporter, your natural defender.
The king would have related to you, when you were
awakened from your slumber, how respectful and proud I
was in being able to prove my science to the most revered
of sovereigns."

And after having spoken these words, Gilbert allowed
the queen sufficient time to meditate upon their import-
ance.

The queen remained silent for several minutes, during
which nothing was heard but the noise of her agitated
breathing.

*' Sir," replied she, after this pause, " from all that you
have now told me, you must be a mortal enemy "

*' Or a devoted friend, madame."

"It is impossible, sir ; friendship cannot exist in unison
with fear or mistrust."

*' The friendship, madame, that exists between a subject
and a queen cannot subsist except by the confidence which
the subject may inspire her with. You will already have
said to yourself that he is not an enemy whom, after the

15 — Dumas — Vol. IX.

338 TAKING THE BASTILE.

first word, we can deprive of the means of doing harm,
especially when he is the first to reuounce the use of his
weapons."

" May I believe, sir, what you have been saying ?" said
the queen, looking thoughtfully at Gilbert.

" Why should you not believe me, madame, when you
have every proof of my sincerity ? "

*=AIen change, sir — men change."

" Madame, I have made the same vow that certain illus-
trious warriors made before starting on an expedition, as
to the use of certain weapons in which they were skilled.
I shall never make use of my advantages but to repel the
wrong that others may attempt to do me. Not for offense,
but for defense. That is my motto."

" Alas ! " said the queen, feeling humbled.

** I understand you, madame. You suffer because you
see your soul in the hands of a physician — you who re-
belled at times against the idea of abandoning the care of
your body to him. Take courage ; be confident. He
wishes to advise you well who has this day given you proof
of such forbearance as that you have received from me.
I desire to love you, madame ; I desire that you should be
beloved by all. The ideas I have already submitted to the
king I will discuss with you."

" Doctor, take care!" exclaimed the queen, gravely.
''You caught me in your snare ; after having terrified the
woman, you think to control the queen."

"Xo, madame," answered Gilbert; '"lam not a con-
temptible speculator. I have ideas of my own ; and I can
conceive that you have yours. I must, from this very
moment, repel this accusation — one that you would for-
ever make against me — that I had intimidated you iu order
to subjugate your reason. I will say more, that you are
the first woman in whom I have found united all the pas-
sions of a woman and all the commanding qualities of a
man. You may be at the same time a woman and a friend.
All humanity might be concentrated in you, were it neces-
sary, I admire you, and I will serve you. I will serve
you without any remuneration from you, merely for the
sake of studying you, madame. I will do still more for
your service. In case I should seem to you to be a too
inconvenient piece of palace furniture, or if the impression
made by the scene of to-day should not be effaced from

TAKING THE BASTILE. 339

your memory, I shall ask yon, I shall pray yon to dismiss

me."

'• Dismiss you ! " excUiimed the queen, with a joyful air
that did not escape Gilbert.

"Well, then, it is agreed, madame," replied he, with
admirable presence of mind. *' I shall not even tell the
king what I had intended, and I shall depart. Mnst I go
to a great distance to reassure you, madame ? *'

She looked at him, and appeared surprised at so much
self-denial.

^'I perceive," said he, **what your majesty thinks.
Your majesty, who is better acquainted than is generally
thought with the mysteries of the magnetic influence which
so much alarmed you a few minutes since — your majesty
says to herself that at a distance from her 1 shall be no
less dangerous and troublesome."

" How is that ?" exclaimed the queen.

" Yes, I repeat it, madame. He who would be hurtful
to any one by the means you have reproached my masters
and myself for employing, could practise his hurtful power
equally well were the distance a hundred leagues, as
at three paces. Fear nothing, madame. I shall not
attempt it."

The queen remained thoughtful for a moment, not
knowing how to answer this extraordinary man, wlio made
her waver even after she had formed the firmest resolutions.

On a sudden, the noise of steps heard from the end of
the gallery made Marie Antoinette raise her head.

" The king," said she, *' the king is coming."

'•'In that case, madame, answer me, I pray you — shall I
remain here, or shall I leave you ? "

" But "

"Make haste, madame. I can avoid seeing the king,
if you desire it. Your majesty may show me a door by
which I can M'ithdraw."

" lleraain ! " said the queen to him.

Gilbert bowed courteously, while Marie Antoinette en-
deavored to read in his features to what extent triumph
would reveal more than either anger or anxiety.

Gilbert remained perfectly impassible.

** At least," said the queen to herself, ** he ought to have
manifested some slight satisfaction."

340 TAKING THE BASTILE.

CHAPTER III.

The king entered the room qaickly and heavily, as waa
his custom.

He had a busy, inquisitive air, that contrasted strangely
with the icy rigidity of the queen's demeanor.

The fresh complexion of the king had not abandoned
him. Having risen early, and feeling quite proud of the
sound heal til he enjoyed by inhaling the morning air, he
was breathing noisily and stepped out vigorously on the
floor.

" The doctor," said he, " what has become of the
doctor ? " ,

"Good morning, sire. How do you do this morning?
Do you feel much fatigued ? "

" 1 have slept six hours ; that is my allowance. I am
very well. My mind is clear. You look rather pale,
madame. I was told that you had sent for the doctor."

" Here is Doctor Gilbert," said the queen, stepping from
before the recess of a window, in which the doctor had
concealed himself till that moment.

The king's brow at once cleared up. Then :

*'Ah ! I forgot," said he. "You sent for the doctor.
Have you been unwell ?"

The queen blushed.

" You blusli ! " exclaimed Louis XVI.

She turned crimson.

" Another secret," said the king.

*' What secret, sire ?" exclaimed the queen, haughtily.

** You do not understand me. I tell you that you, who
have your own favorite physicians, you would not have
sent for Doctor Gilbert, unless you felt the desire, which
I know "

"What desire ?"

" You always have to conceal your sufferings from me."

** Ah ! " exclaimed the queen, regaining courage.

"Yes," continued Louis XVI.; " but take good care.
Monsieur Gilbert is one of my confident ial friends ; and
if you tell him anything, he will be sure to tell it me."

Gilbert smiled.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 34I

"As for that, no, sire," said lie.

** Well, then, the queen is corrupting my people !"

Marie Antoinette gave one of those little stifled laughs
which imply merely a wish to interrupt a conversation, or
that the conversation is very tedious.

Gilbert understood her, but the king did not.

"Let us see, doctor," said he, "as it seems to amuse
the queen, tell me what she has been saying to you."

"I was asking the doctor," said Marie Antoinette, in
her turn, " why you had sent for him so early. I must,
indeed, confess that his presence at Versailles at so unusual
an hour perplexes me and makes me uneasy."

"I was waiting for the doctor," replied the king, look-
ing gloomy, " to speak on politics with him."

" Ah ! very well," said the queen.

And she seated -herself as if to listen.

" Come, doctor," rejoined the king, taking a step to-
ward the door.

Gilbert made a profound bow to the queen, and was
about to follow Louis XVI.

"Where are you going ?" exclaimed the queen.
** What ! are you going to leave me ?"

" We are not going to talk on gay subjects, madame.
It would be as v/ell for us to spare you so much care."

" Do you call my sorrow care ? " exclaimed the queen,
majestically.

" A still better reason for doing so, my dear."

" Remain here ; I wish it," said she. " Monsieur Gil-
bert, I imagine you will not disobey me."

" Monsieur G ilbert — Monsieur Gilbert I " exclaimed the
king, much vexed.

" Well, then, what is the matter ? "
_ " Why, Monsieur Gilbert, wiio was to give me some ad-
vice, who was to talk freely to mo, according to his con-
science. Monsieur Gilbert 'vill now no longer do so."

" And why not ? " exclaimed the queen.

"Because you will be present, madame."

Gilbert made a sort of gesture, to which the queen im-
mediately attributed some important meaning.
^ " In what manner," said she, to second it, " will Mon-
sieur Gilbert risk to displease me, if he speaks according
to his conscience ? "

"It is easily understood, madame," said the king.

342 TAKING THE BASTILE.

** Yon have a political system of your own. It is not
always ours ; so that "

"So that Monsieur Gilbert, you clearly say, differs
essentially from me in my line of politics."

" That must be the case, madanie," replied Gilbert,
** judging from the ideas which your majesty knows me to
entertain. Only your majesty may rest assured that I
shall tell tlie truth as freely in your presence as to the
king alone."

'• Ah ! that is already something," exclaimed Marie
Antoinette.

"The truth is not always agreeable," hastily murmured
Louis XVI.

'•' But it is useful," observed Gilbert.

*' Or even uttered with good intention," added the
queen.

'• In that view of the case, I agree with you," interposed
Louis XVI. ** But if yon were wise, madame, you would
leave the doctor entire freedom of speech, and which I
need "

*' Sire," replied Gilbert, ''since the queen herself calls
for the truth, and as I know her majesty's mind is suflEi-
ciently noble and powerful not to fear it, I prefer to speak
in presence of both tny sovereigns."

" Sire," said the queen, "I request it."

" I have full faith in your majesty's good sense," said
Gilbert, bowing to the queen. "The subject is the hap-
piness and glory of his majesty the king."

"Yon are right to put faith in me," said the queen.
** Begin, sir."

" AH this is very well," continued the king, who was
growing obstinate, according to his custom ; "but, in
short, the question is a delicate one. and I know well that
as to mvself you will greatly embarrass me by being
present.

The queen could not withl.'old a gesture of impatience.
She rose, then seated lierself again, and darted a penetra-
tinfj and cokl look at the doctor, as if to divine his
thoughts,

Louis XVI., seeing that there was no longer any means
of escaping tlie ordinary and extraordinary inquisitorial
rack, seated himself in" his armciiair, opposite Gilbert,
and heaved a deep sigh.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 343

'' What is the point in question ? " usked the queen, us
Boon as this singular species of council had been thus con-
stitated and installed.

Gilbert looked at the king once more, as if to ask him
for his authority to speak openly,

*' Speak ! Good Heaven, go on, sir, since the queen
desires it."

" AVell, then, madame,"said the doctor, " I will inform
your majesty in a few words of the object of my early visit
to Versailles. I came to advise his majesty to proceed to
Paris."

Had a spark fallen among the eight thousand pounds of
gunpowder at the Hotel de Ville, it could not have pro-
duced the explosion which those words caused in the
queen's heart.

" The king proceeds to Paris ! The king ! Ah ! " and
she uttered a cr}^ of horror that made Louis XVI.
tremble.

"There!" exclaimed the king, looking at Gilbert,
*' what did I tell you, doctor ? "

" The king ! " continued the queen, '' the king in the
midst of a revolted city ! the king amid pitchforks and
scythes ! the king among the men Avho massacred the
Swiss, and who assassinated Monsieur de Launay and Moti-
sieur de Flesselles ! the king crossing the square of the
Hotel de Ville, and treading in the blood of his defenders !
You must be deprived of your senses, sir, to sjiealc thus.
Oh ! I repeat it, you are mad ! "

Gilbert lowered his eyes like a man who is restrained
by feelings of respect ; but he did not answer a single word.

The king, who felt agitated to the bottom of his soul,
turned about in his scat like a man undergoing tortures
on the gridiron of the Inquisition.

"Is it possible," continued the queen, *'that such an
idea should have found a place in an intelligent mind — in
a French heart ? What, sir, do you not then know that
you are speaking to the successor of St. Louis — to the
great-grandson of Louis XIV. ?"

The king was beating the carpet with his feet.

**I do not suppose, however," continued the queen,
** that you desire to deprive the king of the assistance of
his guards and his army, or that you are socking to draw
him out of his palace, which is a fortress, to expose him.

•i44 TAKING THE BASTILE.

alone and defenseless, to tlie blows of his infuriated ene-
mies ; you do not wish to see the king assassinated, I sup-
pose. Monsieur Gilbert ? "

" If I thought that your majesty for a single moment
entertained an idea that I am capable of such treachery,
I should not be merely a madman, but should look upon
myself as a wretch. But Heaven be thanked, madame 1
you do not believe it any more than I do. Xo, I came to
give my king this counsel, because I think the counsel
good, and even superior to any other."

The queen clinched her liand upon her breast with so
much violence as to make the cambric crack beneath its
pressure.

The king shrugged up his shoulders, with a slight move-
ment of impatience.

''But for Heaven's sake," cried he, ''listen to him,
madame ; there will be time enough to say no when you
have heard him."

"The king is right, madame," said Gilbert, ''for you
do not know what I have to tell your majesties. You
think yourself surrounded by an army which is firm,
devoted to your cause, and ready to die for you ; it is au
error. Of the French regiments, one half are conspiring
with the regenerators to carry out their revolutionary
ideas."

"Sir," exclaimed the queen, " beware I Yon are in-
sulting the army ! "

" On the contrary, madame," said Gilbert, " I am its
greatest eulogist. We may respect our queen, and be de-
voted to the king, and still love our country, and devote
ourselves to liberty."

The queen cast a flaming look, like a flash of lightning,
at C ilbcrt.

" Sir," she said to him, " this language "

" Yes, this language offends you, madame. I can
readily understand that ; for, according to all probability,
your majesty hears it now for the first time."

*' We must, nevertheless, accustom ourselves to it,'*
muttered Louis XVI., with the submissive good sense
that constituted his chief strength.

" Never I " exclaimed Marie Antoinette, *' never !"

" Let us see. Listen, listen I I think what the doctor
says is full of reason."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 345

The queen sat down, trembling with rage.

Gilbert continued :

'' I was going to say, madame, that I have seen Paris,
ay, and that you have not even seen Versailles. Do you
know what Paris wishes to do at this moment .'' "

'* 'No," said the king, anxiously.

" Perhaps it does not wish to take the Bastile a second
time," said the queen, contemptuously.

"Assuredly not, madame," continued Gilbert; ''but
Paris knows that there is another fortress between the
people and their sovereign. Paris proposes to assemble
the deputies of the forty-eight districts of which it is com-
posed, and send them to Versailles."

'•'Let them come! let them come!" exclaimed the
queen, in a tone of ferocious joy. " Oh ! they will be
well received here ! "

" Wait, madame," replied Gilbert, " and beware. These
deputies will not come alone."

" And with whom will they come ? "

" They will come supported by twenty thousand Na-
tional Guards."

"National Guards!" said the queen. "What are
they?"

' ' Ah ! madame, do not speak lightly of that body ; it
will some day become a power — it will bind and loosen."

" Twenty thousand men ! " exclaimed the king.

" Well, sir," replied the queen, in her turn, "you have
here ten thousand men that are worth a hundred thousand
rebels ; call them, call them, I tell you ; the twenty thou-
sand wretches will here find their punishment, and the ex-
ample needed by all this revolutionary slime which I would
sweep awav, ay, in a week, were I but listened to for an
hour."

Gilbert shook his head sorrowfully.

" Oh, madame," said he, " how you deceive yourself,
or, rather, how you have been deceived ! Alas ! alas ! have
'you reflected on it ? A civil war, provoked by a queen ; one
only has done this, and she carried with her to the tomb a
terrible epitliet ; she was called the Foreigner."

" Provoked by me, sir / How do you understand that ?
iWasit I who fired upon the Bastile without provocation ? "

"Ah, madame, "cried the king, "instead of advocat-
ing violent measures, listen to reason."

346 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' To weakness ! "

" Come now, Antoinette, listen to the doctor," said the
king, austerely. *' The arrival of twenty thousand men
is not a trilling matter, particularly if we should have to
fire grape-shot upon them."

Tlion, turning toward Gilbert :

*' Go on, sir," said he ; " go on.'*

"All these hatreds, which become more inveterate from
estrangement — all these boastings, which become courage
when opportunity is ajfforded for their realization — all the
confusion of a battle, of which the issue is uncertain — oh I
spare the king, spare yourself, madame, the grief of wit-
nessing them I " said the doctor. " You can, perhaps, by
gentleness disperse the crowd which is advancing. The
crowd wishes to come to the king — let us forestall it ; let
the king go to the crowd. Let him, though now sur-
rounded by his army, give proof to-morrow of audacity
and political genius. Those twenty thousand men of
whom we are speaking might, perhaps, conquer the king
and his army. Let the king go alone and conquer these
twenty thousand men, madame ; they are the people."

The king could not refrain from giving a gesture of as-
sent, which Marie Antoinette at once observed.

'* Wretched man ! " cried she to Gilbert, ** but yon do
not, then, perceive the effect which the king's presence in
Paris would produce, under the conditions you require ?"

"Speak, madame."

" It would be saying, ' I approve ; ' it would be saying,
'You did right to kill my Swiss;' it would be saying
'You have acted rightly in murdering my officers, in set-
ting fire to and making my capital stream with blood ; yoa
have done right in dethroning me. I thank you, gentle-
men, I tliank you.'"

And a disdainful smile rose to the lips of Marie An-
toinette.

"No, madame, your majesty is mistaken."

"Sir!"

" It would be saying. There has been some justice in
the grief of tlio people. I am come to pardon. It is I
who am the chief of the nation, and the king. It is I who
am at the head of the French revolution, as in former
days Iloury III. placed himself at the head of the League.
Your generals are my officers, yonr National Guards my

TAKING THE BASTILE. 347

soldiers, yonr magistrates are my meu of business. In-
stead of urging me onward, follow me, if you are able to
do so. The greatness of my stride will j^rove to you once
more that 1 am the King of France, the successor of Char-
lemagne. ' "

'' He is right," said the king, in a sorrowful tone.

*' Oh ! " exclaimed thH3 queen, " for mercy's sake, listen
not to this man — this man is your enemy."

" Madame," said Gilbert, " his majesty himself is about
to tell you what he thinks of the words I have spoken."

" I think, sir, that you are the first who. up to this
moment, has dared to speak the truth to me."

" The truth ! " cried the queen. " Gracious Heaven !
what is it you are saying ? "

"Yes, madame," rejoined Gilbert, "and impress your-
self fully with this fact, that truth is the only torch which
can point out and save royalty from the daVk abyss into
which it is now being hurled."

And while uttering these words, Gilbert bowed humbly,
as low as even to the knees of Marie Antoinette.

CHAPTER IV.

For the first time the queen appeared deeply moved.
Was it from the reasoning, or from the humility, of the
doctor ?

Moreover, the king had risen from his seat with a de-
termined air ; he was thinking of the execution of Gil-
bert's project.

However, from the habit which he had acquired, of
doing nothing without consulting the queen :

" Madame," said he to her, "do you approve it ?"

" It appears it must be so," replied the queen.

"I do not ask you for any abnegation," said the king.

" What is it, then, you ask ? "

" I ask you for the expression of a conviction which
will strengthen mine."

" You ask of me a conviction ? "

"Yes."

'* Oh ! if it be only that I am convinced, sir."

"Of what?"

348 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" That the moment has arrived which will render mon-
archy the most deplorable uud the most degrading posi-
tion which exists in tlie whole world."

"Oh !" said the king, "you exaggei-ate ; deplorable, I
will admit, but degrading, that is impossible."

" Sir, the kings, your forefathers, have bequeathed to
you a very mournful inheritance," said the queen, sorrow-

" Yes," said Louis XVI., "an inheritance which I have
the grief to make you share, madame."

" Be pleased to allow me, sire," said Gilbert, who truly
compassionated the great misfortunes of his fallen sover-
eigns ; " I do not believe that there is any reason for your
majesty to view the future in such terrific colors as you
have depicted it. A despotic monarchy has ceased to
exist, a constitutional empire commences."

" Ah, sir," said the king, " and am I a man capable of
founding such an empire in France ?"

" x\nd why not, sire ?" cried the queen, somewhat com-
forted by the last M'ords of Gilbert.

** Madame," replied the king, "I am a man of good
sense and a learned man. I see clearly, instead of endeav-
oring to see confusedly into things, and I know precisely
all that is necessary for me to know, to administer the
government of this country. From the day on which I
shall be precipitated from the height of the inviolability
of an absolute prince — from the day on which it shall be
allowed to be discovered that I am a mere plain man — 1
lose all the factitious strength w'hich alone was necessary
to govern France, since, tospeak truly, Louis XIIL, Louis
XIV., and Louis XV. sustained themselves completely,
thanks to this factitious strength. What do the French
now require ? A master. I feel that I am only capable
of being a father. What do the revolutionists require ?
A sword. I do not feel that I have strength enough to
strike.'*

" You do not feel that you have strength to strike I "
exclaimed the queen, " to strike peo])le who are destroy-
ing the property of your children, and who would carry
off, even from your own brow, one after the other, every
gem that adorns the crown of France I"

" What answer can I make to this ? " calmly said Louis
XVL " AVould you have mo reply, No ? By bo doing, I

TAKING THE BASTILE. 349

ehonld raise np in yonr miud one of those storms wliich
are the discomfort of my life. You know how to hate.
Oh, so mucli tlie better for yon. Yon know how to be
nnjnst, and I do not reproach you with it. It is a great
qaality in those who have to govern.*'

*' Do yon, perchance, consider me unjust toward the
revolution ? Now, tell me that ? '*

" In good faith, yes."

" You say yes, sire ? you say yes ? "

" If you were the wife of a plain citizen, my dear An-
toinette, you would not speak as you do."

*' I am not one,"

*' And that is the reason for my excusing you ; but that
does not mean that I approve your course. Ko, madame,
no, you must be resigned ; we succeeded to the throne of
France at a period of tlie storm and tempest. We ought
to have strength enougli to push on before us that car
armed with scythes, and which is called Revolution, but
our strength is insuflBcient."

" So much the worse," said Marie Antoinette, " for it
is over our children that it will be driven."

*' Alas ! that I know ; but at all events we shall not
urge it forward."

" We will make it retrograde, sire ?"

" Oh ! " cried Gilbert, with a prophetic accent, ** be-
ware, madame ; in retrograding it will crush you."

*' Sir," said the queen, impatiently, ** I observe that
you carry the frankness of your counsels very far."

" I will be silent, madame."

*' Oh ! good heaven ! let him speak on," said the king.
** What he has now announced to you, if he has not read
it in twenty newspapers during the last eight days, it is
because he has not chosen to read them. You should, at
least, be thankful to him that he does not convey the truths
he utters in a bitter spirit."

Marie Antoinette remained silent for a moment ; then,
with a deep-drawn sigh :

" 1 will sum up," she said, " or, rather, I will repeat my
arguments. By going to Paris voluntarily it will bo sanc-
tioning all that has been done there."

" Yes," replied tlie king, *' I know that full wC) "

"Yes, it would be humiliating — disowning your army,
which is preparing to defend you."

350 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" It is to spare the effusion of French blood," said the
doctor. . .

" It is to declare that henceforward tumultuous risings
and violence may oppose such a direction to the will of
the king as may best suit the views of insurgents and
trftitors.

"Madame, I believe," said Gilbert, " that you had just
now the goodness to acknowledge that I had had the good
fortune to convince you."

" Yes, I just now did acknowledge it ; one corner of the
veil had been raised up before me. But now, sir— oh,
now that I am becoming blind, as you have termed it,
and I prefer looking into my own mind to see reflected
there those splendors to which education, tradition, and
history have accustomed me, I prefer considering myself
still a queen than to feel myself a bad mother to this peo-
ple who insult and hate me."

" Antoinette ! Antoinette ! " cried Louis XVI., terri-
fied at the sudden paleness which pervaded the queen's
face, and which was nothing more than the precursor of a
terrible storm of anger.

" Oh ! no, no, sire, I will speak ! " replied the
queen.

" Beware, madame ! " said he.

And with a glance, the king directed the attention of
Marie Antoinette to the presence of the doctor.

"Oh ! this gentleman knows all that I was about to
say ; he knows even everything I think, said the queen,
with a bitter smile at the recollection of the scene which
had just before occurred between her and the doctor.
"And, therefore, why should I restrain myself? This
gentleman, moreover, has been taken by us for our confi-
dant, and I know not why I should have any fear of speak-
in.fr. I know that you are carried, dragged away, like the
unhappy prince in my dear old German ballads. Whither
are you going ? Of that I know nothing ; but you are
going whence you will never return."

" Why, no, madame ; I am going simply and plainly to
Paris," replied Louis XVI.

Marie Antoinette raised her shoulders. ^
" Do you believe me to be insane ? " said she, in a voice
of deep irritation. " You are going to Paris ? 'Tis well.
Who tells you that Paris is not an abyss which I see not.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 351

but which I can divine ? Who can say whether, in the
tumultuous crowd by which you will necessarily be sur-
rounded, you will not be killed ? Who knows from whence
a chance shot may proceed ? Who knows, amid a hun-
dred thousand upraised and threatening hands, which it is
that has directed the murderous knife ? "

" Oh, on that head you need not have the slightest ap-
prehension. They love me ! " exclaimed the king.

" Oh, say not that, sire, or you will make me pity you.
They love you, and they kill, they assassinate, they mas-
sacre those who represent you on the earth ; you, a king —
you, the image of God. Well, the governor of the Bastile
was your representative ; he was the image of the king.
Be well assured of this, and I shall not be accused of exag-
geration when I say it : If they have killed De Launay,
that brave and faithful servant, they would have killed
you, sire, had you been in his place, and much more easily
than they killed him, for they know you, and know that
instead of defending yourself, you would have bared your
breast to them."

" Conclude," said the king.

'' But I had thought that I had concluded, sire."

'' They will kill me ? "

*' Yes, sire."

*' Well ? " _

*' And my children ! " exclaimed the queen.

Gilbert thought it time that he should interfere.

" Madame," said he, " the king will be so much re-
spected at Paris, and his presence will cause such trans-
ports, thiit if I have a fear, it is not for the king, but for
those fanatics who will throw themselves to be crushed
beneath his horses' feet, like the Indian fakirs beneath the
car of their idol."

'*' Oh, sir, sir ! " cried Marie Antoinette.

*' This march to Paris will be a triumph, madame."

" But, sire, you do not reply."

"■ It is because I agree somewhat with the doctor,
madame."

"And you are impatient, are you not, to enjoy this
great triumph ?"

" And the king, in this case, would be right," said Gil-
bert ; " for this impatience would be a further proof of
the profoundly just discrimination with which his majesty

352 TAKING THE BASTILE.

judges men and things. The more his majesty shall
hasten to accomplish this, the greater will his triumph
be."

*' Yes, you believe that, sir ?"

" I am positive it will be so. For the king, by delay-
ing it, would lose all the advantage to be derived from its
spontaueousness. But reflect, madame, reflect, that the
initiative of this measure may proceed from another
quarter, and such a request would cliange, in the eyes of
the Parisians, tlie position of his majesty, and would give
him, in some measure, the appearance of acceding to an
order. "

" There, hear you that ? * ' exclaimed the queen. "The
doctor acknowledges it— they would order you. Oh, sire,
think of that."

''The doctor does not say that they have ordered,
Madame."

" Patience — patience ! only delay a little, sire, and the
request, or, rather, the order, will arrive."

Gilbert slightly compressed his lips with a feeling of
vexation, which the queen instantly caught, athough it
was almost as evanescent as the lightning.

" What have I said ! " murmured she. " Poor simple-
ton ! I have been arguing against myself."

"In what, madame ?" inquired the king.

"In this — that by a delay I should make you lose the
advantage of your initiative ; and, nevertheless, I have to
ask for a delay."

"Ah, madame, ask everything, exact anything, except-
ing that."

"Antoinette," said the king, taking her hand, "you
have sworn to ruin me."

" Oh, sire ! " exclaimed the queen, in a tone of reproach,
which revealed all the anguish of her heart. " And can
you speak thus to me ? "

" Why, then, do you attempt to delay this journey ? "
asked the king.

" Consider truly, madame, that under such circum-
stances, the fitting moment is everything — reflect on the
importance of the hours which are flying i)ast us at sucli a
period, when an enraged aiid furious people are counting
them anxiously as they strike."

" Not to-day, Monsieur Gilbert ; to-morrow, sire, oh, to-

TAKING THE BASTILE. 353

morrow ! grant me till to-morrow, and I swear to yon I
will no longer oppose this journey."

" A day lost," murmured the king.

*' Twenty-four long hours," said Gilbert ; reflect on that,
Madame."

" Sire, it must be so," rejoined the queen, in a suppli-
cating tone.

" A reason — a reason ! " cried the king.

" None, but my despair, sire — none, but my tears — none,
but my entreaties."

" But between this and to-morrow what may happen ?
Who can tell this ? " said the king, completely overcome
by seeing the queen's despair.

*' And what is there that could happen ? " said the
queen, at the same time looking at Gilbert with an air of
entreaty.

'•'Oh," said Gilbert, *' out yonder — nothing yet. A
hope, were it even as vague as a cloud, would suffice to
make them wait patiently till to-morrow ; but "

" But it is here, is it not ? " said the king.

** Yes, sire, it is here that we have to apprehend.'*

*' It is the Assembly ?"

Gilbert gave an affirmative nod.

*'The Assembly," continued the king, '*with such men
as Monsieur Monnier, Monsieur Mirabeau, and Monsieur
Siey^s, is capable of sending me some address wliich
would deprive me of all the advantage of my good inten-
tions. "

" Well, then," exclaimed the queen, with gloomy fury,
"so much the better, because you would then refuse —
because then you would maintain your dignity as a king —
because then you would not go to Paris, and if we must
here sustain a war, well, here will we sustain it — because,
if we must die, we will die here, but as illustrious and un-
shrinking monarchs — which we are — as kings, as masters,
as Christians who put their trust in God, from whom we
hold the crown."

On perceiving this feverish excitement of the queen,
Louis XVI. saw that there was nothing to be done but to
yield to it.

lie made a sign to Gilbert, and ailvancing to Marie An-
toinette, whose hand ho took :

*' Tranquilize yourself, madame," said he to her ; "all

354: TAKING THE BASTILE.

shall be done as you desire. Yon know, my dear wife,
that I would not do anything which would be displeasing
to you, for I have the most unbounded affection for a
woman of your merit, and, above all, of your virtue."

And Louis XVI. accentuated these last words with in-
expressible nobleness, thus exalting with all his power the
so much calumniated queen, and that in the presence of
a witness capable, should it be requisite, of properly
reporting all he had heard and seen.

This delicacy profoundly moved Marie Antoinette, who,
grasping with both hands the hand which the king held
out to her :

*' Well, then, only till to-morrow, sire — no later ; that
shall be the last day ; but I ask you that as a favor on my
knees. To-morrow, at the hour which may please you, I
swear to you you shall set out for Paris."

*' Take care, madame, the doctor is a witness," said the
king, smiling.

"Sire, you have never known me to forfeit my word,"
replied the queen.

** Xo, but there is onlv one thing I acknowledge "

*'What is that?"

'•' It is, that I am anxious, resigned a^? you appear to be,
to know why you have asked me for this delay of twenty-
four hours. Do you expect some news from Paris ? — some
intelligence from Germany ? Is there anything "

*' Do not question me, sire."

" The king was as inquisitive as Figaro was lazy ; any-
thing that excited his curiosity delighted him.

"Is there any question as to the arrival of troops — of a
reinforcement — of any political combination ?"

" Sire, sire ! " murmured the queen, in a reproachful
tone.

"It is a question of "

"There is no question in the matter," replied the
queen.

" Then it is a secret ?"

" Well, tiien, yes ; the secret of an anxious woman, that
is all."

" A caprice, is it not ?"

" Caprice, if you will."

" The supreme law."

"That is true ! Why does it not exist iu politics as in

TAKING THE BASTILE. 355

philosophy ? Why are kings not permitted to make their
political caprices supreme laws ? "

" It will come to that, you may rest assured. As to
myself, it is already done," said the king, in a jocose tone.
"Therefore, till to-morrow."

'* Till to-morrow ! " sorrowfully rejoined the queen.

*' Do you keep the doctor with you ? " asked tiie king.

** Oh, no, no ! " cried the queen, with a sort of eagerness,
which made Gilbert smile.

"I will take him with me, then."

Gilbert bowed a third time to the Queen Marie Antoinette,
who, this time, returned his salutation more as a woman
than a queen.

Then, as the king was going toward the door, he followed
the king.

" It appears to me,'' said the king, as they proceeded
along the gallery, " that you are on good terms with the
queen. Monsieur Gilbert."

" Sire," replied the doctor, *' it is a favor for which I
am indebted to your majesty."

" Long live the king ! " cried the courtiers, who already
thronged the antechambers.

" Long live the king ! " repeated a crowd of officers and
foreign soldiers in the courtyard, who were eagerly hasten-
ing toward the palace doors.

These acclamations, which became louder as the crowd
increased, gave greater delight to the heart of Louis XVI.
than any he had before received, although he had so fre-
quently been greeted in the same manner.

As to the queen, still seated where the king had left her,
near the window, and where she had just passed such
agonizing moments, when she heard the cries of devotedness
and love which welcomed the king as he passed by, and
which gradually died away in the distance, under the
porticoes, or beneath the thickets of the park :

" Long live the king ! " cried she ; " yes, long live the
king ! The king will live, and that, in despite of thee,
infamous Paris ! thou odious gulf, thou sanguinary abyss,
thou shalt not swallow up this victim ! I will drag him
from thee, and that with this little, this weak arm. It
threatens thee at this moment — it devotes thee to the ex-
ecration of the world, and to the vengeance of God ! "

And pronouncing these words with a violence of hatred

366 TAKING THE BASTILE.

■vvhicli would liave terrified tlie most fiirions friends of the
revolution, could they have seen and heard her, the queen
stretched forth toward Paris her weak arm, which shone
from beneath the lace which surrounded it like a sword
starting from its scabbard,

Tlieii she called Mme. de Campan, the lady-in-waiting
in whom she placed the most confidence, and shutting
herself up with her in her cabinet, ordered that no one
should be admitted to her presence.

CHAPTER V.

The following morning the sun rose brilliant and pure
as on the preceding day. Its bright rays gilded the marble
and the gravel walks of Versailles.

The birds, grouped in thousands on the first trees of the

Eark, saluted, with their deafening songs, the new and
almy day of joy thus promised to their love.

The queen had risen at five o'clock. She had given
orders that the king should be requested to go to her
apartment as soon as he should wake.

Louis XVI., somewhat fatigued from having received a
deputation of the Assembly, w^iich had come to thei)alace
the preceding evening, and to which he had been obliged
to reply — this was the commencement of speech-making —
Louis XVI. had slept somewhat later than usual to recover
from his fatigue, and that it might not be said that he was
not as vigorous as ever.

Therefore, he was scarcely dressed when the queen's
message was delivered to him ; he was at that moment
putting on his sword. He slightly knit his brow.

" What ! '" said he, " is the queen already up ? "

" Oh, a long time ago, sire."

" Is she again ill ? "

''No, sire."

" And what can the queen want so early in the morn-
ing ? "

** Her majesty did not say."

The king took his first breakfast, whicli consisted in a
bowl of soup and a little wine, antl then went to the queen's
apartment.

He found the queen full dressed as for a ceremoiiious

TAKING THE BASTILE. 357

reception — beautiful, pale, imposing. She welcomed her
husband witli that cold smile which shone like a winter's
sun upon the cheeks of tlie queen, as when in the grand
receptions at court it was necessary she should cast some
ra^'s upon the crowd.

The king could not comprehend the sorrow which per-
vaded that smile and look. He was already prejiaring
himself for one thing, that is to say, the resistance of Marie
Antoinette to the project which had been proposed the
day before.

''Again some new caprice," thought he.

And this was the reason for his frowning.

The queen did not fail, by the first words she uttered,
to strengthen this opinion.

" Sire," said she, " since yesterday I have been reflecting
much "

" There, now — now it is coming !'" cried the king.

" Dismiss, if you please, all who are not our intimate
friends," said the queen.

The king, though much annoyed, ordered his officers to
leave the room.

One only of tlie queen's women remained ; it was Mme.
Campaii.

Then the queen, laying botli her beautiful hands on the
king's arm, said to him :

" Why are you dressed already ? That was wrong."

" How wrong ? and why ? "

'•' Did I not send word to you not to dress yourself until
you had been here ? I see you have already your coat on
and your sword. I had hoped you would have come in
your dressing-gown."

The king looked at her, much surprised.

This fantasy of the queen awakened in his mind a crowd
of strange ideas, the novelty of which only rendered the
improbability still stronger.

His first gesture was one of mistrust and uneasiness.

" What is it that you wish ? " said he. " Do you pre-
tend to retard or prevent that which we had yesterday
agreed upon ? "

" In no way, sire."

"Let mo entreat you not to jest on a matter of so
serious a nature. I ought and I will go to Paris. I can no
longer avoid it. My household troops are prepared. The

358 TAKING THE BASTILE.

persons wlio are to accompany me were summoned last night
to be ready.''

" Sire, i have no pretensions of that nature, but "

** Reflect," said the king, working himself up by degrees
to gain courage, '' reflect tliat the intelligence of my in-
tended journey must have already reached the Parisians —
that they have prepared themselves — that they are expect-
ing me — tliat the very favorable feelings, as wore predicted
to us, thatthis journey has excited in the })ublic mind, may
"be changed into dangerous hostility. Reflect, in fine '*

" But, sire, I do not at all contest what you have done
me the honor to say to me. I resigned myself to it yester-
day— this morning I am still resigned."

•'Then, madame, why all this preamble ?"

" I do not make any."

" Pardon me, pardon me ; then, why all these questions
regarding my dress, my projects ? "

" As to your dress that I admit," said the queen, en-
deavoring again to smile ; but tluit smile, from so frequent-
ly fading away, became more and more funereal.

** AVhat observations have 3^ou to make upon my dress ? '*

"I wish, sire, that you would take off your coat."

" Do you not think it becoming ? It is a silk coat of a
violet color. The Parisians are accustomed to see me
dressed thus : they like to sec me in this, with which,
moreover, the blue ribbon harmonizes well. You have
often told me so yourself."

" I have, sire, no objections to olier to the color of your
coat."

•' Well, then ? "

" But to the lining."

*' In truth you puzzle me with that eternal smile. The
lining — what jest "

** Alas ! I ]io longer jest."

" There — now you are feeling my waistcoat ; does that
displease you too ? White talTeta and silver, tlie embroid-
ery worked by your own hand — it is one of my favorite
waistcoats."

" I have nothing to say against the waistcoat, neither."

*'IIow singular you are! Is it, then, the frill or the
embroidered can)])riG shirt tliat offends you ? Why must
I not appear in full dress when I am going to visit my
good city of Paris ? *

\>i

TAKING THE BASTILE. 359

A bitter smile contracted the queen's lips ; the nether
lip particularly, that which the Austrian was so much
reproached for ; it became tliicker, and advanced as if it
were swelled by all the venom of hatred and of anger.

*' No," said she, " I do not reproach you for being so
well dressed, sire, but it is the lining — the lining, i say
again and again."

" The lining of my embroidered coat ! Ah, will you at
least explain yourself ? "

''Well, then, I will explain. The king, hated, con-
sidered an incumbrance, who is about to throw himself into
the midst of seven hundred thousand Parisians, inebriated
with their triumph and their revolutionary ideas, the king
is not a prince of the Middle Ages, and yet he ought to
make his entry this day into Paris in a good iron cuirass,
in a helmet of good Milan steel ; he should protect himself
in such a way that no ball, no arrow, no stone, no knife,
could reach his person."

''That is in fact true," said Louis XVI., pensively;
but, my good friend, as I do not call myself nor Charles
the Eighth, nor Francis the first, nor even Henry the
fourth, as the monarchy of my day is one of velvet and of
silk, I shall go naked under my silken coat, or to speak
more correctly, I shall go with a good mark at which they
may aim their balls, for I wear the jewel of my orders
just over my heart."

The queen uttered a stifled groan.

"Sire," said she, " we begin to understand each other.
You shall see, yon shall see that your wife jests no longer."

She made a sign to Mme. Campan, Avho had remained
at tlie furtlior end of the room, and the latter took from a
drawer of the queen's chiffonier a wide, oblong flat parcel
wrapped up in a silken cover.

" Sire," said the queen, '*' the heart of the king belongs,
in the first place, to France, that is true ; but I fully be-
lieve that it belongs to his wife and children. For my
part, I will not consent that this heart should be exposed
to the balls of the enemy — I have adoi)ted measures to save
from every danger my husband, my king, the father of my
children."

While saying this, she unfolded the silk which covered
it, and displayed a waistcoat of fine steel mail, crossed with
such marvelous art that it might have been thought an

860 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Arubiau watered stuff, so supple aud elastic was its tisane,
80 admirable the play of its wliole surface.

" Wiiat is that ? " said the kiug.

" Look at it, sire."

" A waistcoat, it appears to me."

" Why, yes, sire."

*' A waistcoat that closes up to the neck."

" With a small collar, iuteuded, as you see, to line the
collar of the waistcoat or the cravat."

The king took the waistcoat in his hands and examined
it very minutely.

The queen, on observing this eagerness, was perfectly
transported. The king, on his part, appeared delighted,
counting the rings of this fairy net which undulaced be-
neath his fingers with all the malleability of knitted wool.

""Why," exclaimed he, '*this is admirable steel !"

'' Is it not, sire ? "

"I really cannot imagine where you can have procured
this."

"I bought it last night, sire, of a man who long since
wished me to purchase it of him, in the event of your
going out on a campaign."

" It is admirable, admirable ! " repeated the king, ex-
amining it as an artist.

"And it will fit you as well as a waistcoat made by your
tailor, sire."

" Oh ! do you believe that ? "

" Try it on."

The king said not a word, but took off his violet-colored
coat.

The queen trembled with joy ; she assisted Louis XYI.
in taking off his orders, and Mme. Campan the rest.

The king, however, unbuckled his sword, and laid it on
the table.

If any one at that moment had coutomi)lated the face
of the queen, they would have seen it lighted up by one
of ihose triumphant smiles which supreme felicity alone
bestows.

The king allowed her to divest him of his cravat, and
the delicate fingers of the queen placed the steel collar round
his neck.

Then Marie Antoinette herself fastened the hooks of his
-corBelot, which adapted itself beautifully to the shape of

TAKING THE BASTILE. 361

the body, being lined throughout with a fine doe-skin for
the purpose of preventing any uncomfortable pressure
from the steel.

This waistcoat was longer than an ordiuary cuirass ; it
covered the whole body.

With the waistcoat and shirt over it, it did not increase
the volume of the body even half a line. It did not, in
the slightest degree, inconvenience any movement of the
wearer.

" Is it very heavy ? " asked the queen.

'' No."

" Only see, my king, it is a perfect wonder, is it not ? "
said the queen, clapping her hands, and turning to Mme.
de Campan, who was just buttoning the king's ruffles.

Mme. de Campan manifested her joy in as artless a man-
ner as did the queen.

** I have saved my king ! " cried Marie Antoinette.
" Test this invisible cuirass, prove it, place it upon a
table, try if you can make any impression upon it with a
knife ; try if you can make a hole through it with a ball —
try it — try it ! "

" Oh !" exclaimed the king, with a doubting air.

" Only try it/' repeated she, with enthusiasm.

" I would willingly do so from curiosity," replied the
king.

" You need not do so ; it would be superfluous, sire."

"How, it would be superfluous that 1 should prove to
you the excellence of your wonder ? "

" Ah ! thus it was with all the men. Do you believe
that I would have given faith to the judgment of another
— of an indifferent person when the life of my husband,
the welfare of France was in question ? "

*' And yet, Antoinette, it seems to me that this is pre-
cisely what you have done — you have put faith in another."

She shook her head with a delightful playful obstinacy.

*' Ask her," said she, pointing to the woman who was
present, "ask our good Campan tliuere what we have done
this morning ?"

" What was it, then ? Good Heaven ! " ejaculated the
king, completely puzzled.

" This morning — what am I saying — last night, after
dismissing all the attendants, we went, like two mad-
brained women, and shut ourselves up in her room, which

16— Dumas— Vol. IX,

3G2 TAKING THE BASTILE.

is at the far end of tlie wing occupied by the pages. Now
the pages were sent off last night to prepare, the apart-
ments at Kambonillet, and we felt well assured that no
one could interrupt us before we had executed our pro-
ject."

" Good Heaven ! you really alarm me ! What were the
designs then of these two Judiths ? "

" Judith effected less, and certainly with less noise.
But for that the comparison would be marvelously ap-
propriate. Campan carried the bag which contained this
breastplate ; as for me, I carried a long hunting-knife
which belonged to my father, that infallible blade which
killed so many wild boars."

" Judith ! still Judith ! " cried the king, laughing.

** Oh ! Judith had not the heavy pistol which I took
from your armory, and which I made Weber load for me."

" A pistol ! "

" Undoubtedly. You ought to have seen us running
in tlie dark — startled, agitated at the sliglitest noise —
avoiding everybody for fear of their being indiscreet, creep-
ing like two little mice along the deserted corridors.

" Campan locked three doors and placed a mattress
against the last, to prevent our being overheard ; we put
the cuirass on one of the figures which they use to stretch
my gowns on, and placed it against a wall. And I, with
a firm hand, too, I can assure you, struck the breastplate
with the knife ; the blade bent, flew out of my hand, and
bounding back, stuck into the floor, to our great terror."

*' The deuce !" exclaimed the king.

''Wait a little."

*' Did it not make a hole ?" asked Louis XVI.

" Wait a little, I tell you. Campan pulled the knife
out of the board. 'You are not strong enough, madame,*
she said, ' and perhaps your hand trembles. I am stronger,
as you shall see.' She, therefore, raised the knife, and
gave the figure so violent a blow, so well applied, that my
poor German knife snapped off short against the steel mail.

"See, here are two pieces, sire. I will liave a dagger
made for you out of one of them."

" Oil ! this is absolutely fabulous," cried the king, "and
the mail was not injured ? "

" A slight scratch on the exterior ring, and there are
three, one over the other."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 363

*'I should like to see it."

''You shall see it."

And the queen began to undress the king again with
wonderful celerity, in order that he might tlae sooner
admire her idea and her high feats in arms.

" Here is a place that is somewhat damaged, it would
appear to me," said the king, pointing to a slight depres-
sion over a space of about an inch in circumference.

*' That was done by the pistol-ball, sire."

" How, you fired ofE a pistol loaded with ball — you V

" Here is the ball, completely flattened, and still black.
Here, take it, and now do you believe that your life is in
safety ? "

"You are my tutelar angel," said the king, who began
slowly to unhook the mailed waistcoat, in order to examine
more minutely the traces left by the knife and the pistol-
shot.

" Judge of my terror, dear king," said Marie Antoinette,
" when on the point of firing the pistol at the breastplate.
Alas ! the fear of the report, that horrible noise which you
know has so frightful an effect upon me, was nothing ;
but, it appeared to me, that in firing at the waistcoat des-
tined to protect you, I was firing at you, yourself ; I was
afraid of wounding you ; I feared to see a hole in the mail,
and then my efforts, my trouble, my hopes were forever
lost."

''My dear wife," said Louis XVI., having completely
unhooked the coat of mail and placed it on the table,
*' what gratitude do I not owe you I "

" Well, now, what is it you are doing? " asked the queen.

And she took the waistcoat and again presented it to
the king.

But he, with a smile, replete with nobleness and kind-
ness :

" No," said he, "I thank you."

"You refuse it ?" said the queen.

"I refuse it."

"Oh ! but reflect a moment, sire."

" Sire ! " cried Mme. Campan, in a supplicating tone,
"but 'tis your salvation — 'tis your life !"

" That is possible," said tlie king.

" You refuse the succor which God himself has sent
us?"

364: TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' Enongh ! enough ! " said the king.

"Oh ! you refuse ! you refuse ! "

'* Yes ; I refuse."

"But they will kill you."

" My dear Antoinette, when gentlemen in this eight-
eenth century are going out to battle, they wear a cloth
coat, waistcoat, and shirt ; this is all they have to defend
them against musket-balls ; when they go upon the held
of honor to fight a duel, they throw off all but their shirt,
that is for the sword. As for myself, 1 am the first gentle-
man of my kingdom ; I will do neither more nor less than
my friends ; and there is more than this — while they
wear cloth, 1 alone have the right to wear silk. Thanks,
my good wife ; thanks, my good queen — thanks."

" Ah I " exclaimed the queen, at once despairing and
delighted, "why cannot his army hear him speak thus ?"

As to the king, he quietly completed his toilet, without
even appearing to understand the act of heroism he had
just performed.

" Is the monarchy, then, lost ? " murmured the queen,
" when we can feel so proudly at such a moment ? "

CHAPTER VI.

On leaving the queen's apartment, the king immediately
found himself surrounded by all the officers and all the
persons of his household who had been appointed by him
to attend him on his journey to Paris.

The principal personages were MM. de Beauvau, de Vil-
leroy, de Nesle, and d'Estaing.

Gilbert was waiting, in the middle of the crowd, till
Louis XVI. should perceive him, wore it only to cast a
look upon him in passing.

It could be easily perceived that the whole of the throng
there present were still in doubt, and that they could not
credit that the king would persist in following up the
resolution he had come to.

" After breakfast, gentlemen," said the king, " we will
set out."

Then, perceiving fJilbert :

"Ah! you are there, doctor," lie continued, "yon
know that I take you with me."

" At your orders, sire.'*

TAKING THE BASTILE. 365

The king went into his cabinet, where he was engaged
two hours.

He afterward attended masB with all his household ;
then, at about nine o'clock he sat down to breakfast.

The repast was taken with the usual ceremonies, ex-
cepting that the queen, who, after attending mass, was ob-
served to be out of spirits, her ej^es swelled and red, had
insisted on being present at the king's repast, but without
partakiiig of it in the slightest manner, that she might be
with liim to the last monieut.

The queen had brought her two children with her, who
already much agitated, doubtless by what the queen had
said to them, were looking anxiously from time to time
at their father's face, and then at the crowd of officers of
the guards who were present.

The children, moreover, from time to time, by order of
their mother, wiped away a tear, which every now and
then would rise to their eyelids, and the sight of this ex-
cited the pity of some and the anger of others, and iilled
the whole assembly with profound grief.

The king ate on stoically. lie spoke several times to
Gilbert, without taking his eyes off his plate ; he spoke
frequently to the queen, and always with deep affection.

At last, he gave instructions to the commanders of his
troops.

He was just finishing his breakfast, when an officer
came in to announce to him that a compact body of men,
on foot, coming from Paris, had just appeared at the end
of the grand avenue leading to the Place d'Armes.

On hearing this, tlie officers and guards at once rushed
out of the room. The king raised his head and looked at
Gilbert, but seeing that Gilbert smiled, he tranquilly con-
tinued eating.

The queen turned pale, and leaned toward M. de Beau-
vau, to request him to obtain information.

M. de Bcauvau ran out precipitately.

The queen then drew near to the window.

Five minutes afterward M. de Beauvau returned.

" Sire," said he, on entering the room, " they are Na-
tional Guards, from Paris, who, hearing the rumor spread
yesterday in the capital of your majesty's intention to
visit the Parisians, assembled to the number of some ten
thousand, for the purpose of coming out to meet you ou

366 TAKING THE BASTILE.

the road, and not meeting you so soon as they expected,
tliey have pushed on to Versailles."

"What appears to be their intentions?" asked the
king.

'' The best in the world," replied M. de Beauvau.

"That matters not," said the queen, "have the gates
closed. "

"Take good care not to do that," said the king;
" it is quite enough that the palace doors remain closed."

The queen frowned, and darted a look at Gilbert.

The latter was awaiting this look from the queen for
one half his prediction was already fulfilled. lie had
promised the arrival of twenty thousand men, and ten
thousand had already come.

The king turned to M. de Beauvau.

" See that refreshments be given to these worthy peo-
ple," said he.

M. de Beauvau went down a second time. He trans-
mitted to the cellarman the order he had received from
the king.

After doing this, he went up-stairs again.

" "Well ?" said the king, in a tone of inquiry.

" AVell, sire, your Parisians are in high discussion with
the gentlemen of the guards."

"How !" cried the king, "there is a discussion ? "

"Oh! one of pure courteousness. As they have been
informed that the king is to set out in two hours, they
wish to await his departure, and )narch behind his maj-
esty's carriage."

"But," inquired the queen in her turn, "they are on
foot, I sup])oso ? ■ '

" Yes, madame."

"But the king has horses to his carriage and the king
travels fast, very fast — you know, Monsieur de Beauvau,
that the king is accustomed to traveling very rapidly."

These words, pronounced in tlie tone the queen pro-
nounced the?n, implied :

" Put wings to his majesty's carriage."

The king made a sign with his hand to stop the col-
loquy.

" 1 will go at a walk."

The queen heaved a sigh which almost resembled a cry
of anger.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 367

**It would not be right," tranquilly added Louis XVI.,
*' that I should make these worthy people run, who have
taken the trouble to come so far to do me honor. I\ty
carriage shall be driven at a walk, and a slow walk, too, so
that everybody may be able to follow me."

The whole of tlie company testified their admiration by
a murmur of approbation ; but at the same time, there
was seen on the countenances of several persons, the reflec-
tion of the disapproval which was expressed by the features
of the queen, at so much goodness of soul which she con-
sidered as mere madness.

A window was opened.

The qneen turned round amazed. It was Gilbert, who,
in his quality of physician, had only exercised the right
which appertained to him of renewing the air of the
dining-room, thickened by the odors of the viands and
the breathing of two hundred persons.

" What is that ?" asked the king."

** Sire," replied Gilbert, " the National Guards are down
there on the pavement, exposed to the heat of the sun, and
they must feel it very oppressive."

** Why not invite them up-stairs to breakfast with the
king ? " sarcastically said one of her favorite officers to the
queen.

" They should be taken to some shady place — put them
into the marble courtyard, into the vestibules, wlierever
it is cool," said the king.

" Ten thousand men in the vestibules ! " exclaimed the
queen.

*'If they are scattered everywhere, there will be room
enough for them," said the king.

" Scattered everywhere ! " cried Marie Antoinette,
*' why, sir, you will teach them the way to your own bed-
chamber."

This was the prophecy of terror which was to be realized
at Versailles before three months had elapsed.

" They have a great many children with them, niadame,"
said Gilbert, in a gentle tone.

" Children ! " exclaimed the queen.

** Yes, madame ; a great many have brought their chil-
dren with them, as if on a party of pleasure. The children
arc dressed as little National Guards, so great is the en-
thusiasm for this new institution."

368 TAKING THE BASTILS.

The queen opened her lips as if about to speak ; but,
almost instauLly, slie held down her head.

She had felt a desire to utter a kind word ; but pride
and hatred liad stopped it ere it had escaped her lips.

Gilbert looked at her attentively.

"Ah !" cried the king, ''those poor children. When
people bring children with them, it is plain that they liave
no intention to do harm to the father of a family ; another
reason for putting them in a cooler place, poor little things;
let them in, let them in,"

Gilbert, then gently shaking his head, api)eared to say-
to the queen, who had remained silent :

** There, madame ; that is what you ought to have said.
I had given you the opportunity ; your kind words would
have been repeated, and you would have gained two years
of popularity."

The queen comprehended Gilbert's mute language, and
a blush suffused her face.

She felt the en-or she had committed, and immediately
excused herself by a feeling of pride and resistance, which
she expressed by a glance, as a reply to Gilbert. During
this time, M. de Beauvau Avas following the king's orders
relating to the National Guards.

Then were heard shouts of joy and benediction from that
armed crowd admitted by the king's order to the interior
of the palace.

The acclamations, the fervent wishes, the loud hurrahs,
aflceuded as a whirlwind to the hall in which the king and
queen were seated, whom they reassured with regard to
the disposition of the so much dreaded inhabitants of
Paris.

" Sire," said M. de Beauvau, "■ in what order is it that
your majesty determines the procession shall be con-
ducted ? "

** And the discussion between the National Guards and
my ofiicers ? "

" Oh, sire, it has evaporated, vanished ; those worthy
people are so happy that they now say, * "V\'e will go wher-
ever you may please to place us. The king is our king as
much as he is everybody else's king. Wherever he may
be, he is ours."

The king looked at Marie Antoinette, who curled, with
an ironical smile, her disdainful lip.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 3^9

''Tell the National Guards," said Louis XYL, ''they
may place themselves where they will."

" Your majesty," said the queen, " will not forget that
your body-guards have the right of surrounding your car-
riage."

The officers, who perceived that the king was somewhat
undecided, advanced to support the arguments of the queen.

" That is the case, undoubtedly," replied the king.
"Well, we shall see."

M. de Beauvau and M. de Yilleroy left the room, to
take their stations and to give the necessary orders.

The clock of Yersailles struck ten.

" Well, well," said the king, " I shall put off my usual
labors till to-morrow ; these worthy people ought not to be
kept waiting."

The king rose from the table,

Marie Antoinette went to the king, clasped him in her
arms, and embraced him. The children clung weeping to
their father's neck. Louis XYL, who was much moved,
endeavored gently to release himself from them ; he
wished to conceal the emotions which would soon have
become overpowering.

The queen stopped all the officers as they jaassed by her,
seizing the one by the arm, others by their swords.

" Gentlemen, gentlemen," said she, " I confide in you,"
And this eloquent exclamation recommended to them to
be watchful for the safety of the king, who had just de-
scended the staircase.

All of them placed their hands upon their hearts and
upon their swords.

The queen smiled to thank them.

Gilbert remained in the room till almost the last.

"Sir," said the queen to him, " it was you who advised
the king to take this step. It was you who induced the
king to come to this resolution, in spite of my entreaties.
Reflect, sir, that you have assumed a fearful responsibility
as regards tlie wife, as regards the children."

"J am sensible of that," coldly replied Gilbert.

"And you will bring the king back to me safe and un-
hurt ? " she said, with a solemn gesture.

" Yes, madanie."

" Reflect, that you will answer for his safety with your
head."

370 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Gilbert bowed.

" Reliect that your head is answerable," cried Marie
Autoinette.

** Upon my head be the risk/' said the doctor, again bow-
ing. " Yes, madanie ; and this pledge I should consider
as a hostage of but little value, if I considered the king's
safety to be at all threatened. But I have said, madame,
that it is to a triumph that I this day conduct his
majesty."

** I must have news of him every hour," added the
queen.

'' You shall, madame ; and this I swear to you."

" Go, sir — go at once. I hear the drums, the king is
about to leave the palace."

Gilbert bowed, and descending the grand staircase,
found himself face to face with one of the king's aides-de-
camp, who was seeking him by order of his majesty.

They made him get into a carriage which belonged to
M. de Beuuvau, the grand master of the ceremonies not
allowing, as he had not produced proofs of his nobility,
that he should travel in one of the king's carriages.

Gilbert smiled, in finding himself alone in a carriage
with arms upon its panels, M. de Beauvau being on horse-
back, curveting by the side of the royal carriage.

Then it struck him that it was ridiculous in him thus to
be occupying a carriage on which was painted a princely
coronet and armorial bearings.

This scruple was still annoying him, when, from the
midst of a crowd of National Guards, Avhowere following
the carriage, he heartl the following conversation, though
carried on in a half whisper, by men who were curiously
stretching out their necks to look at him.

" Oh ! that one — that is the Prince de Beauvau."

" Why," cried a comrade, ''you are mistaken."

"I tell you it must be so, since the carriage has the
prince's arms upon it."

" The arms — the arms ! I say that means nothing."

" Zounds ! " said another, " what do the arms prove ? "

" They prove that if the arms of Monsieur do Beauvau
are upon the coach, it must be Monsieur de Beauvau who
is inside of it."

" Jlonsieur de Beauvau — is he a ])atriot?" asked a
woman.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 371

" Pooh ! " exclaimed the National Guard.

Gilbert again smiled.

'' But I tell you," said the first contradictor, " that is
not the prince — the prince is stout, and that one is thin ;
the prince Avears the uniform of a commandant of the
guards, tliat one wears a black coat ; it is his intendant."

A murmur which was by no means favorable to Gilbert
rose among the crowd, who had degraded him by giving
him this title, which was not at all flattering.

'* Why, no, by the devil's horns ! " cried a loud voice,
the sound of which made Gilbert start ; it was the voice
of a man who, with liis elbows and his fists, was clearing
his way to get near the carriage. " No," said he, ** it is
neither Monsieur de Beauvau nor his intendant. It is the
brave and famous patriot, and even the most famous of all
the patriots. Why, Monsieur Gilbert, what the devil are
you doing in the carriage of a prince ?"

" Ha ! it is you. Father Billot ? " exclaimed the doctor.

" By Heaven !" replied the farmer, '' I took good care
not to lose the opportunity."

*' And Pitou ? " asked Gilbert.

*' Oh ! he is not far off. Halloo ! Pitou, Avlicre are you ?
Come this way — come quickly ! "

And Pitou, on hearing this invitation, managed, by a
dexterous use of his shoulders, to slip through the crowd
till he reached Billot's side, and then, with admiration,
bowed to Gilbert.

" Good-day, Monsieur Gilbert," said he.

"Good-day, Pitou, good-day, my friend."

" Gilbert, Gilbert, who is he ? " inquired the crowd of
one another.

''Such is fame," thought the doctor, ''well understood
at Villers-Cotterets — yes : but at Paris, popularity is
everything."

He alighted from the carriage, which continued its on-
ward progress at a walk, while Gilbert moved on with the
crowd, on foot, leaning on Billot's arm.

He, in a few words, related to the farmer his visit to
Versailles, the good disposition of the king and the royal
family ; he in a few minutes preached such a propaganda
of royalism to the group by which he was surrounded,
that, simple and delighted, these worthy people, who
were yet easily induced to receive good impressions, ut-

372 TAKING THE BASTILE.

tereJ loud and coutinned shouts of *' Long live the king ! "
which, taken up by those who preceded them, soon
reached the head of the line, and deafened Louis XVL in
his carriage.

" I will see the king'.'' cried Billot, electrified. "I
must get close to him, and see him well — I cume all this
way on purpose. I will judge him by his face — the eye of
an honest man can always speak for itself. Let us get
nearer to his carriage — Monsieur Gilbert, shall we not ?"

" Wait a little, and it will be easy for us to do so," re-
plied Gilbert, "for I see one of Monsieur de Beauvau's
aides-de-camp, who is seeking for some one, coming this
way."

And, in fact, a cavalier, who, managing his horse with
every sort of precaution, amid the groups of fatigued but
joyous pedestrians, was endeavoring to get near the car-
riage which Gilbert had just left.

Gilbert called to him.

'•'Are you not looking, sir, for Doctor Gilbert?" he
inquired.

''' Himself,'' replied the aide-de-camp.

"In that case, I am he."

'•' Monsieur de Beauvau sends for you, at the king's
request."

These high-sounding words made Billot's eyes open
widely, and on tlie crowd they had the effect of making
them open their ranks to allow Gilbert to pass. Gilbert
glided through them, followed by Billot and Pitou, the
aide-de-camp going before tliem, who kept on repeating :

"Make room, gentlemen, make room; let us pass, in
the king's name, let us pass."

Gilbert soon reached the door of the royal carriage,
which was moving onward as if drawn by Merovingian
oxen.

CIL^PTER Vn.

Tnus pushing and thus puslied, but still following M.
de Beauvau's aide-de-camp, Gilbert, Billot, and Pitou at
length reached the carriage, in wluch the king, accom-
panied by MM. d'Estaing and de Villeroy, was slowly ad-
vancing amid the crowd which continually increased.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 373-

ExtraordinaiT, unknown, unheard-of spectacle ! for it
was the first time tliat such a one had been seen. All
those National Guards from the surrounding villages, im-
promptu soldiers suddenly sprung up, hastened with cries
of joy to greet the king in his progress, saluting him with
their benedictions, endeavoring to gain a look from him,
and then, instead of returning to their homes, taking-
place in the procession, and accompanying their march
toward Paris.

And why ? No one could have given a reason for it.
Were they obeying an instinct ? They had seen, but they
wished again to see, this well-beloved king.

Por it must be acknowledged that at this period Louis
XVI. was an adored king, to whom the French would
have raised altars, had it not been for the profound con-
tempt with which Voltaire had inspired them for all
altars.

Louis XVI., therefore, had no altars raised to him, but
solely because the free-thinkers of that day had too high
an esteem for him to inflict upon him such a humiliation.

Louis XVI. perceived Gilbert leaning upon the arm of
Billot ; behind them marched Pitou, still dragging after
him his long saber.

''Ah, doctor!" cried the king, "what magnificent
weatlier, and what a magnificent people ! "

" You see, sire," replied Gilbert.

Then, turning toward the king :

" What did I promise your majesty ?'*'

'* Yes, sir, yes ; and you have worthily fulfilled your
promise."

The king raised his head, and with the intention of be-
ing heard :

" We move but slowly," said he, "and yet it appears to
me that we advance but too rapidly for all that wo have
to see."

" Sire," said }>L de Beauvau, " and yet at the pace your
majesty is going you are traveling about one league in
three hours. It would be difficult to go more slowly."

In fact, the horses were stopped every moment : ha-
rangues and replies were interchanged ; the National
Guards fraternized — the word was only then invented —
with the body-guard of his majesty.

*' Ah I" said Gilbert to himself, who coutem\)lated this

371 TAKING THE BASTILE. j

sin.ifular spectacle as a j^liilosophcr, '' if tliey fraternize
wiLli the body-guards, it was because before being friends
they ha been enemies/'

" I say, Monsieur Gilbert," said Billot, in a half whis-
per, " 1 have had a good look at the king. I have listened
to him with all my ears. Well, my opinion is that the
king is an honest man."

And the entlnisiasm which animated Billot was so over-
powering that he raised his voice in uttering these last
words to such a pitch that the king and his staff heard
him.

The officers laughed outright.

The king smiled, and then, nodding his head :

*' That is praise which pleases me," said he.

These words were spoken loud enough for Billot to hear
them.

" Oh, you are right, sire, for I do not give it to every-
body," replied Billot, entering at once into conversation
with his king, as Michaud, the miller, did with Henry IV.

'' And that flatters me so much the more," rejoined the
king, much embarrassed at not knowing how to maintain
his dignity as a king and speak graciously as a good
patriot.

Alas ! the poor prince was not yet accustomed to call
himself King of the French.

He thought that he was still called the King of France.

Billot, beside himself with joy, did not give himself the
trouble to reflect whether Louis, in a philosophical point
of view, had abdicated the title of a king to adopt the title
of a man. Billot, who felt how much this language re-
semljled rustic plainness. Billot applauded himself for
having comprehended the king, and for having been com-
prehended by him.

Therefore, from that moment Billot became more and
more enthusiastic. He drank from the king's looks, ac-
cording to the Virgilian expression, deep draughts of love
for constitutional royalty, and communicated it to Pitou,
who, too full of his own love and the superfluity of Billot,
it overflowed at first in stentorian shouts, then in more
squeaking, and finally in less articulate ones of :

"Long live the king! Long live the father of the
peoi)le ! "

This modification in the voice of Pitou was produced by

TAKING THE BASTILE. 375

degrees in proportion as he became more and more
hoarse.

Pitou was as hoarse as a bull-frog when the procession
readied the Point du Jour, where the Marquis de Lafa-
yette, on his celebrated white charger, was keeping in order
the undisciplined and agitated cohorts of the National
Guard, who had from live o'clock that morning lined the
road to receive the royal procession.

At this time it was nearly two o'clock.

The interview between the king and this new chief of
armed France passed off in a manner that was satisfactory
to all present.

The king, however, began to feel fatigued ; he no longer
spoke, he contented himself with merely smiling.

The general-in-chief of the Parisian militia could no
longer ntter a command, he only gesticulated.

The king had the satisfaction to find that the crowd as
frequently cried, "Long live the king !" as *' Long live
Lafayette !" Unfortunately, this was the last time he was
destined to enjoy this gratification of his self-love.

During this, Gilbert remained constantly at the door of
the king's carriage. Billot near Gilbert, Pitou near Billot.

Gilbert, faithful to his promise, had found means since
his departure from Versailles to despatch four couriers to
the queen.

These couriers had each been the bearer of good news,
for at every step of his journey the king had seen caps
thrown up in the air as he passed, only on each of these
caps shone the colors of the nation — a species of reproach
addressed to the white cockade which the king's guards
and the king himself wore in their hats.

In the midst of his joy and his enthusiasm, this dis-
crepancy in the cockades was the only thing which an-
noyed Billot.

Billot had on his cocked hat an enormous tri-colored
cockade.

The king had a white cockade in his hat ; the taste of
the subject and the king were not, therefore, absolutely
similar.

This idea so much perplexed him that he could not re-
frain from unburdening liis mind upon tlie subject^ to
Gilbert at a moment when the latter was not conversing
with, tlie king.

376 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Monsieur Gilbert," said lie to him, " how is it that his
majesty does not wear the national cockade ? "

" Because, my dear Billot, either the king does not
know that there is a new cockade, or he considers that the
cockade he wears ought to be the cockade of the na-
tion."

" Oh, no ! oh, no ! since his cockade is a white one,
and our cockade — ours — is a tri-colored one."

" One moment," said Gilbert, stopping Billot just as he
was about to launch with heart and soul into the argu-
ments advanced by the newspapers of the day, ** the king's
cockade is white, as the flag of France is white. The king
is in no way to blame for this. Cockade and Aug were
white long before he came into the world. Moreover, my
dear Billot, that flag has jjerformed great feats, and so has
the white cockade. There was a white cockade in the hat
of Admiral de Suffren when he reestablished our flag in
the East Indies. There was a white cockade in the hat of
Assas, and it was by that the Germans recognized him in
the night, when he allowed himself to be killed rather than
that they should take his soldiers by surprise. There was
a white cockade in the hat of Marshal Saxe when he de-
feated the English at Fontcnoy. There was, in fine, a white
cockade in the hat of the Prince de Conde, when he beat the
Imperialists at Kocroi, at Fribourg, and at Lens. The
white cockade has done all this, and a great many other
things, my dear Billot, while the national cockade, which
will perhaps make a tour round the world, as Lafayette has
predicted, has not yet had time to accomplish anything,
seeing that it exists only for the three last days. I do not
say that it will rest idle, do you understand, but, in short,
having as yet done nothing, it gives the king full right to
wait till it has done something,"

" How ! the national cockade has as yet done nothing ? "
cried Billot ; "has it not taken the Bastile ? "

*'Ithas," said Gilbert, sorrowfully; ''you are right.
Billot."

" And that is why," triumphantly rejoined the farmer,
" that is why the king ought to adopt it,"

GilV)ert gave a furious nudge with his elbow into Billot's
ribs, for ho had perceived the king was listening, and
then, in a low tone :

'* Are you mad, Billot ? " said he : " and against whom

TAKING THE BASTILE. 377

was the Bastile taken, then ? Against royalty, it seems to
me. And now you would make the king wear the tropliies
of your triumph, and the insignia of his own defeat. Mad-
man ! the king is all heart, all goodness, all candor, and
you would wish him to show himself a hypocrite ? "

** But," said Billot, more humbly, without, however,
giving up the argument altogether, "it was not precisely
against the king that the Bastile was taken, it was against
despotism."

Gilbert shrugged up his shoulders, but with the delicacy
of the superior man, who will not place his foot on his
inferior, for fear that he should crush him.

*' Xo," said Billot, again becoming animated, " it is not
against our good king that we have fought, but against his
satellites."

Xow, in those days, they said, speaking politically, satel-
lites instead of saying soldiers, as they said in the theaters,
courser instead of horse.

" Moreover," continued Billot, and with some appear-
ance of reason, " he disapproves them, since he comes
thus in the midst of us ; and if he disapproves them, he
must approve us. It is for our happiness and his honor
that we have worked, we, the conquerors of the Bastile."

" Alas ! alas I " murmured Gilbert, who did not know
how to conciliate the appearance of the king's features with
that which he knew must be passing in his heart.

As to tlie king, he began, amid the confused murmurs
of the march, to understand some few words of the con-
versation entered into by his side.

Gilbert, who perceived the attention which the king was
paying to the discussion, made every effort to lead Billot
on to less slippery ground than that on which he had
ventured.

Suddenly the procession stopped ; it had arrived at the
Oours do la Eeine, at the gate formerly called La Confer-
ence, in the Champs Elys^es.

There a deputation of electors and aldermen, presided
by the new mayor, Bailly, had drawn themselves up in
fine array, with a guard of three hundred men, commanded
by a colonel, besides at least three hundred members of
the National Assembly, taken, as it will be readily im-
agined, from the ranks of the Tiers Etat.

Two of the electors united their strength and their ad-

378 TAKING THE BASTILE.

dress to hold in equilibriuiii a vast salver c£gilt plate,
upon which were lying two enormous keys, the keys of
the city of Paris during the days of Henry IV.

This imposing spectacle at once put a stop to all indi-
vidual conversation, and every one, whether in the crowd
or in the ranks, immediately directed their attention to
the speeches about to be pronounced on the occasion.

Bailly, the worthy man of science, the admirable as-
tronomer, who had been made a deputy in dellance to his
OAvn will, a mayor in spite of his objections, an orator
notwithstanding his unwillingness, had prepared a long
speech. This speech had for its exordium, according to
the strictest laws of rhetoric, a laudatory encomium on
the king, from the coming into power of M. Turgot, down
to the taking of the Bastile. Little was wanting, such
privilege has eloquence, to attribute to the king the initia-
tive in the acts of the people.

Bailly was delighted with the speech he had prepared,
when an incident — it is Bailly himself who relates this
incident, in his Memoirs — when an incident furnished him
with a new exordium, very much more 2")icturesque than
the one he had prepared — the only one, moreover, which
remained engraved on the minds of the people, always
ready to seize upon good and, above all, fine-sounding
phrases, when founded upon a material fact.

While walking toward the place of meeting, with the
aldermen and the electors, Bailly was alarmed at the
weight of the keys which ho was about to present to the
king.

" Do you believe," said he, laughingly, " that after hav-
ing shown these to the king, that I will undergo the fatigue
of carrying them back to Paris ? "

""What will you do with them, then?" asked one of
the electors.

" What will I do with them ? " said Bailly ; " why, I
will give them to you, or I will throw them into some
ditch at the foot of a tree."

" Take good care not to do that," cried the elector,
completely horrified. " Do you know that these keys are
the same which the city of Paris oiTercd to Henry IV.,
after the siege ?" They are very jn-ecious, they are in-
estimable antiquities."

** You are right," rejoined Bailly : " the keys offered to

TAKING THE BASTILE. 379,

Henry IV., the conqueror of Paris, and which are now to
be offered to Louis XVI., hey ? Why, I declare, now,"
said the worthy mayor to himself, " this would be a worthy
antithesis in my speech."

And instantly he took a pencil and wrote above the
speech he had prepared the following exordium :

*'Sire, I present to your majesty the keys of the good
city of Paris. They are the same which were offered to
Henry IV. He had reconquered liis people ; to-day the
people have reconquered their king."

The phrase was well turned, and it was also true. It
implanted itself in the memories of the Parisians, and of
all the speeches, all the works of Bailly, this only sur-
vived.

As to Louis XVI., he approved it by an affirmative nod,
but coloring deeply at the same time ; for he felt the epi-
grammatic irony which it conveyed, although concealed
beneath a semblance of respect and oratorical flourishes.

"Oh! Marie Antoinette," murmured Louis XVI. to
himself, " would not allow herself to be deceived by this
pretended veneration of Monsieur Bailly, and would reply
in a very different manner to that which I am about to do
to the untoward astronomer."

And these reflections were the cause why Louis XVI.,
who had paid too much attention to the commencement
of the speech, did not listen at all to the conclusion of it,
nor to that of the president of the electors, M. Dclavigne,
of which he heard neither the beginning nor the end.

However, the addresses being concluded, the king, fear-
ing not to appear sufficiently delighted Avith her efforts to
say that which was agreeable to him, replied in a very noble
tone, and without making any allusion to what the orators
had said, that the homage of the city of Paris and of the
electors was exceedingly gratifying to him.

After which he gave orders for the j)rocession to move
on toward the Hotel de Ville.

But before it recommenced its march, he dismissed his
body-guard, wishing to respond by a gracious confldence
to the half politeness which had been evinced to him by
the municipality through their organs, the president of
electors and ]\I. Bailly.

Being thus alone, amid the enormous mass of National
Guard:: anu spectators, the carriage advanced more rapidly.

380 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Gilbert and his companion Billot still retained their
posts on the right of the carriage.

At the momeut when they were crossing the Place
Louis XV., the report of a gun was heard, fired from the
opposite side of the Seine, and a white smoke arose, like
a veil of incense, toward the blue sky, where it suddenly
vanished.

As if the report of this musket-shot had found an echo
within his breast, Gilbert had felt himself struck, as by a
violent blow. For a second his breath failed him, and he
hastily pressed his hand to his heart, where he felt a
sudden and severe pain.

At the same instant a cry of distress was heard around
the royal carriage ; a woman had fallen to the ground, shot
througli the right shoulder.

One of the buttons of Gilbert's coat, a large steel button,
cut diamond fashion, as they were worn at the period, had
just been struck diagonally by that same ball.

It had performed the office of a breastplate, and the
ball had glanced off from it ; this had caused the painful
shock which Gilbert had experienced.

Part of his waistcoat and frill had been torn off by the
ball.

This ball, on glancing from the button, had killed the
unfortunate woman, Avho was instantly removed from the
spot, bleeding profusely.

Tlie king had heard the shot, but had seen nothing.

lie leaned toward Gilbert, and, smiling, said :

''They are burning gunpowder yonder to do me honor."

" Yes, sire," replied Gilbert.

But he was careful not to mention to his majesty the
nature of tlie ovation wliich they were offering to him.

In his own mind, however, he acknowledged that the
queeii had reason for tlie apprehensions she had expressed,
since, but for him standing immediately before, and clos-
ing the carriage door, as it wore, hermetically, tliat ball,
wiiich had glanced off from his steel button, would liave
gone straight to the king's breast.

And now from what hand had proceeded this so well-
maimed shot ?

No one then wished to inquire, so that it will never now
be known.

Billot, pale from what he had just seen, his eyes in-

TAKING THE BASTILE. 881*

cessantly attracted to the rent made in Gilbert's coat,
waistcoat, and frill, Billot excited Pitou to shout as loudly
as he could, " Long live the Father of the French I"

The event of the day was so great that this episode was
quickly forgotton.

At last Louis XVL arrived in front of the Hotel de
Ville, after having been saluted on the Pont Neuf by a
discharo-e of artillerv, which, at all events, were not
loaded with ball.

LTj^on the fa9ade of the Hotel de Ville was an inscrip-
tion, in large letters, black in the daylight, but which,
when it was dark, were to form a brilliant transparency.
This inscription was the result of the generous lucubra-
tions of the municipal authorities.

The inscription was as follows :

*' To Louis XVL, Fathek of the Frekch, and Kino
OF A Free People."

A.nother antithesis, much more important than the one
contained in M. Bailly's speech, and which excited shouts
of admiration from all the Parisians assembled in the
square.

The inscription attracted the attention of Billot.

But as Billot could not read, he made Pitou read the
inscription to him.

Billot made him read it a second time, as if he had not
understood it perfectly at first.

Then, when Pitou had repeated the phrase, without
varving in a single word :

'' Is it that ? " cried he, " is it that ? "

"Undoubtedly," replied Pitou.

'' The municipality has written that the king is a king
of a free people ? "

" Yes, Father Billot."

'MVell, then," exclaimed Billot, "since the nation is
free, it has the right to offer its cockade to the king."

And with one bound, rushing before the king, who was
then alighting from his carriage at tlie front steps of the
Hotel de Ville:

" Sire," said he, "you saw on the Pont Neuf that the
Henry IV., in bronze, wore the national cockade."

" Well ! " cried the king.

882 . TAKING THE BASTILE. ,

" Well, sire, if Ileiiry IV. wears the national cockade,
you can wear it, too."

" Certainly," said Louis XVI., much embarrassed,
** and if I had one "

" Well," cried ]iillot, in a louder tone, and raising his
hand, ** in the name of the people I offer you this one in
the place of yours ; accept it."

Bailly intervened.

The king was pale. He began to see the progressive
encroachmejit. He looked at Bailly, as if to ask his
opinion.

*' Sire," said tlie latter, *'it is the distinctive sign of
every Frenchman."

" In that case, I accept it," said the king, taking the
cockade from Billot's hands.

And putting aside his own white cockade, he placed the
tri-colored one in his hat.

An immense triumphant hurrah was echoed from the
great crowd in the square.

Gilbert turned away his head, much grieved.

He considered that the people were encroaching too
rapidly, and that the king did not resist sufficiently.

" Long live the king ! " cried Billot, who thus gave the
signal for a second round of applause.

" The king is dead," murmured Gilbert ; **thereisno
longer a king in France."

An arch of sted had been formed by a thousand swords
held up, from the j^lace at Avhich the king had aliglited
from his cari-iage to the door of the hall in which the mu-
nicipal auUiorities were waiting to receive him.

He passed beneath this arch and disappeared in the
gloomy passages of the Hotel de Ville.

" That is not a triumphal arch," said Gilbert ; " but
the caudine forks."

Tlion, with a sitrh :

*' Aii ! what will the queen say to this ?"

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 383

CHAPTER VIII.

In the interior of the Hotel de Ville the king received
the most flattering welcome ; he was styled the Restorer
of Liberty.

Being invited to speak — for the thirst for speeches be-
came every day more intense — and the king wishing, in
short, to ascertain the feelings of all present, he placed
his hand upon his heart, and said :

" Gentlemen, you may always calculate on my affec-
tion."

While he was thus listening in the Hotel do Ville to the
communications from the government — for from that day
a real government was constituted in France, besides tliat
,of the throne and the National Assembly — the people
outside tlie building were admiring the beautiful horses,
the gilt carriage, the lackeys, and the coachman of his
majesty.

Pitou, since the entry of the king into the Hotel do
Ville, had, thanks to a louis given by Father Billot,
amused himself in making a goodly quantity of cockades,
of red and blue ribbons, which he had purchased with the
louis, and with these, which were of all sizes, he had dec-
orated the horses' ears, the harness, and the whole equi-
page.

On seeing this, the imitative people had literally meta-
morphosed the king's carriage into a cockade shop.

The coachman and the footmen were profusely orna-
mented with them.

They had, moreover, slipped some dozens of them into
the carriage itself.

However, it must be said, that M. de Lafayette, who had
remained on horseback, had endeavored to restrain these
honest propagators of the national colors, but had not been
able to succeed.

And, therefore, when the king came out :

" Oh, oh ! " cried he, on seeing this strange bedizenment
of his equipage.

Then, with his hand, he made a sign to M. Lafayette,
to approach him.

384 TAKING THE BASTILE.

«

M. de Lafayette respectfully advanced, lowering his
sword as he came near the king.

" Monsieur de Lafayette," said the king to him, "I was
looking for you to say to you that 1 confirm your appoint-
ment to the command of the National Guards."

And he got into liis carriage amid a univereal acclamation.

As to Gilbert, tranquilized henceforward as to the per-
gonal safety of the king, he had remained in the haU with
Bailly and the electors.

The speechifying had not yet terminated.

However, on hearing the loud hurrahs which sainted the
departure of the king, he approached a window, to cast a
last glance on the square, and to observe the conduct of
his two country friends.

They were botli, or, at least, they appeared to be, still
on the best terms with the king.

Suddenly, Gilbert perceived a horseman advancing
rapidly along the Quay Pelletier, covered with dust, and
obliging the crowd, which was still docile and respect-
ful, to open its ranks and let him pass.

The people, who were good and complaisant on this
great day, smiled while repeating :

" One of the king's ofiicers — one of the king's officers ! '*

And cries of '* Long live the king ! " saluted the officer
as he passed on, and women patted his horses neck, which
was white with foam.

This officer at last managed to reach the king's carriage,
and arrived there at the moment when a servant was clos-
ing the door of it.

'* What ! is it you, Charny ?" cried Louis XVL

And then, in a lower tone :

" How are they all out yonder ?" he inquired.

Then in a whisper :

" The queen ? "

'' Very anxious, siro," replied the officer, who had thrust
his head completely into the carriage window.

''Do you return to Versailles ?"

"Yes, sire."

" Well, then, tell our friends they have no cause for un-
easiness. All has gone oil marveloualy well."

Charny bowed, raised his head, and perceived M. de
Lafayette, who made a friendly sign to him.

Charny went to him, and Lafayette shook hands with

TAKING THE BASTILE. 385

him ; and the crowd, seeing this, almost carried both offi-
cer and horse as far as the qnay, where, thanks to the
vigilant orders given to the National Guards, a line was
formed to facilitate the king's departure.

The king ordered that the carriage should move out at a
walking pace till it reached the Place Louis XV. There
he found his body-guards, who were awaiting the return
of the king, and not without impatience ; so that this im-
patience, in which every one participated, kept on increas-
ing every moment, and the horses were driven on at a pace
which increased in rapidity as they advanced upon the
road to Versailles.

Gilbert, from the balcony of the window, had fully com-
prehended the meaning of the arrival of this horseman,
although he did not know his person. He readily imag-
ined the anguish which the queen must have suffered,
and especially for the last three hours, for during that
time he had not been able to despatch a single courier to
Versailles, amid the throng by which he was surrounded,
without exciting suspicion or betraying weakness.

He had but a faint idea of all that had been occurring
at Versailles.

We shall now return there with our readers, for we do
not wish to make them read too long a course of history.

The king had received the last courier from the queen
at three o'clock.

Gilbert had found means to despatch a courier just at
the moment the king entered the Hotel de Ville, under
the arch formed by the swords of the National Guards.

The Countess de Charny was with the queen. The
countess had only just left her bed, which from severe in-
disposition she had kept since the previous day.

She v/as still very pale. She had hardly strength to
raise her eyes, the heavy lids of which seemed to be con-
stantly falling, weighed down either with grief or shame.

The queen, on perceiving her, smiled, but with that
habitual smile which appears to those familiar with the
court to be stereotyped upon the lips of princes and of
kings.

Then as if overjoyed that her husband was in safety :

" Good news again ! " exclaimed the queen to those
who surrounded her; *'niay the whole day pass off as
well ! "

17— Dumas— Vol. IX.

386 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Oh, madame," said a courtier, "your majesty alarms
yourself too much. The Parisians know too well the re-
Si)onsibilily which weiglis upon them."

" But, madame," said another courtier, who was not so
confiding, '' is your majesty well assured as to the authen-
ticity of this intelligence ? "

*' Oh, yes ! " replied the oueen. '' The person who
writes to me has engaged, at tne hazard of his head, to be
responsible for the safety of the king. Moreover, I be-
lieve him to be a friend."

'' Oh ! if he is a friend," rejoined the courtier, bowing,
*' that is quite another matter."

Mme. de Lamballe, who was standing at a little distance,
approached.

" It is," said she, '' the lately appointed physician, is
it not ? "

'•• Yes, Gilbert," unthinkingly replied the queen, with-
out reflecting that she was striking a fearful blow at one
who stood close beside her.

'•' Gilbert ! " exclaimed Andrce, starting as if a viper
had bit her to the heart, " Gilbert, your majesty's friend ? "

Andree had turned round with flashing eyes, her hands
clinched with anger and shame, and seemed proudly to
accuse the queen, both by her looks and attitude.

" But, however " said the queen, hesitating.

*' Oh, madame, madame ! " murmured Andree, in a tone
of the bitterest reproach.

A mortal silence pervaded the whole room, after this
mysterious incident.

In the midst of this silence, a light step was heard upon
the tesselated floor of the adjoining room.

'' Monsieur de Charny ! " said the queen, in a half
whisper, as if to warn Andree to compose herself.

Charny had heard — he had seen all — only he could not
comprehend it.

He remarked the pallid countenance of Andree, and the
embarrassed air of Marie Antoinette.

It would have been a breach of etiquette to question the
queen ; but Andree was his wife, he had the right to
question her.

He, therefore, went to her, and in the most friendly tone:

" What is the matter, madame ? " said he.

Andree made an effort to recover her composure.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 387

"Nothing, connt," she replied.

Charuy then turned toward the queen, who, notwith-
standing her i^rofound experience in equivocal positions,
had ten times essayed to muster up a smile, but could not
succeed.

" You appear to doubt the devotedness of this Monsieur
Gilbert," said he to Audree. " Have you any motive for
suspecting his fidelity ?"

Andree was silent.

"Speak, madame, speak," said Charny, insistingly.

Then, as Andree still remained mute :

" Oh, speak, madame ! " cried he. " This delicacy now
becomes condemnable. Reflect, that on it may depend
the safety of our master."

" I do not know, sir, what can be your motive for say-
ing that," replied Andree.

" You said, and I heard you say it, madame — I appeal,
moreover, to the princess" — and Charny bowed to the
Princess de Lamballe — " you exclaimed, with an expres-
sion of great surprise, ' Gilbert, your majesty's friend.'"

"'Tis true, you did say that, my dear," said the Princess
de Lamballe, with her habitual ingenuousness.

Then, going closer to Andree :

"If you do know anything. Monsieur de Charny is
right."

" For pity's sake, madame, for pity's sake ! " said Andree,
in an imploring tone, but so low that it could not be heard
by any one but the princess.

The princess retired a few steps.

" Oh, good Heaven ! it was but a trifling matter," said
the queen, feeling that should she any longer delay to in-
terfere she would be failing in propriety. " The countess
was expressing her apprehensions, which doubtless were
but vague. She had said that it was difficult for a man
wlio had taken part in the American revolution, one who
is the friend of Monsieur Lafayette, to be our friend."

"Yes, vague," mechanically repeated Andree — "very
vague."

" A fear of a similar nature to one which had been ex-
pressed by one of these gentlemen before tiie countess had
expressed it here," rejoined Marie Antoinette.

And with her eyes she ])ointed out the courtier whose
doubts had given rise to this discussion.

38S TAKING THE BASTILE.

Bnt it required more than this to convince Charny.
Tlie great confusion wliich had appeared on his entering
tlie room, persuaded him that there was some mystery in
the affair.

He, therefore, persisted.

"It matters not, madame," said he. "It seems to me
that it is your duty not to express vain fears, but, on the
contrary, to state precise facts."

"What, sir," said the queen, with some asperity, "you
are returning to that subject."

" Madame ! "

" Your pardon, but I find that you are still questioning
the Countess de Charny."

"Excuse me, madame," said Cliarny ; "it is from in-
terest for "

"For your self-love, is it not ? Ah ! Monsieur de
Charny," added the queen, with an ironical expression, of
which the count felt the whole weight, "acknowledge the
thing frankly. You are jealous."

"Jealous! jealous!" cried De Charny, coloring — "but
of what ? I ask this of your majesty."

" Of your wife, apparently." replied the queen, harshly.

" Madame ! " stammered Charny, perfectly astounded
at this unlooked-for attack.

" It is perfectly natural," drily rejoined Marie An-
toinette ; "and the countess assuredly is worth the
trouble."

Charny darted a look at the queen, to warn her that
she was going too far.

But this was useless trouble, superfluous precaution.
When this lioness was wounded, and felt the burning pain
galling her heart, she no longer knew restraint.

" Yes, I can comprehend your being jealous. Monsieur
de Charny ; jealous and uneasy ; it is the natural state of
every soul that loves, and which, consequently, is on the
watch."

" Madame ! " repeated Charny.

" And, therefore, I," pursued the queen, " I experience
precisely the same feelings which you do at this moment.
I am at once a prey to jealousy and anxiety." She om-

fhasized the word jealousy. " The king is at Paris, and
no longer live."
"But, madame," observed Charny, who could not at all

TAKING THE BASTILE. 389

comprehend the meaning of this storm, the thunder of
which appeared to growl more fiercely and the lightning
to flash more vividly every moment, "you have just now
received news of the king, the news was good, and you
must feel more tranquil.'^

'' And did you feel tranquilized when the countess and
myself, a moment ago, endeavored to reassure you ?"

Charny bit his lip.

Andree began to raise her hand, at once surprised and
alarmed — surprised at what she heard — alarmed at what
she thought she understood.

The silence which had ensued after the first question
which Charny had addressed to Andree was now renewed,
and the company seemed anxiously awaiting Charny's
answer to the queen. Charny remained silent.

" In fact," resumed the queen, with still increasing
anger, " it is the destiny of people who love to think only
of the object of their affection. It would be happiness to
those poor hearts to sacrifice pitilessly everything, yes,
everything, to the feeling by which they are agitated.
Good Heaven ! how anxious am I with regard to the
king ! "

One of the courtiers ventured to remark that other
couriers would arrive.

" Oh, why am I not at Paris, instead of being here ?
why am I not with the king ?" said Marie Antoinette, Avho
had seen that Charny had become agitated since she had
been endeavoring to instill that jealousy into his mind
which she so violently experienced.

Charny bowed.

*' If it be only that, madame," said he, '* I will go there ;
and if, as your majesty apprehends, the king is in any
danger, if that valuable life be exposed, you may rely,
madame, tliat it shall not be from not having exposed
mine in his defense.'*

' That I know."

Cliarny bowed and moved toward the door.

*• Sir, sir ! " cried Andree, rushing between Charny and
the door, '' be careful of yourself."

Nothing was wanting to the completion of this scene
but this outburst of the fears of Andree.

And, therefore, as soon as Andree had been thus im-
pelled, and in spite of herself, to cast aside her habitual

390 TAKING THE BASTILE.

coldness — no sooner liad she uttered these imprudent words
and evinced this iimvouted solicitude, than the queen be-
came frightfully pale.

" Why, inadanie," she cried to Andree, " how is this, that
you here usurp the part of the queen ?*'

''Who — I, madame?" stammered Andree, compre-
hending tliat she had, for the first time, allowed to burst
forth from her lips the fire which for so long a period had
consumed her soul.

" What ! " continued Marie Antoinette ; " your husband
is in the king's service. He is about to set out to seek
the king. If he is exposing his life, it is for the king, and
when the question is the service of the king, you advise
Monsieur tie C'harny to be careful of himself."

On hearing these appalling words, Andree was near
fainting. She staggered, and would have fallen to the
floor had not Charny rushed forward and caught her in
his arms.

An indignant look, which Charny could not restrain,
completed the despair of Marie Antoinette, who had con-
sidered herself an offended rival, but who, in fact, had
been an unjust queen.

" The queen is right," at length said Charny, with some
effort, " and your movement, madame, was inconsiderate.
You have no husband, madame, when the interests of the
king are in question ; and I ought to be the first to re-
quest you to restrain your sensibility, if I presumed that
you deigned to feel any alarm for me."

Then, turning toward Marie Antoinette :

"I am at the queen's orders," said he, coldly, "and I
set out at once. It is I who will bring you news of the
king — good news, madame, or I will not bring any."

Then, having spoken these words, he bowed almost to
the ground, and left the room before the queen, moved at
once by terror and by anger, had thought of detaining
him.

A moment afterward was heard the noise of a horse's
hoofs clattering over the pavement of the courtyard, and
which was galloping at full speed.

Tlie queen remained motionless, but a prey to internal
agitation so much the more terrible from her making the
most violent efforts to conceal it.

Some understood, while others could not comprehend

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 391

the canse of this agitation, but they all showed that they
respected their sovereign's tranquillity.

Marie Antoinette was left to her own thoughts.

Andree withdrew with the rest from the apartment,
abandoning Marie Antoinette to the caresses of her two
children, whom she had sent for, and who had been
brought to her.

CHAPTER IX.

Night had returned, bringing with it its train of fears
and gloomy visions, when suddenly shouts were heard from
the front of the palace.

The queen started and rose up. She was not far from
a window, which she opened.

Almost at the same instant, servants, transported with
joy, ran into the queen's room, crying :

*' A courier, madame, a courier ! "

Three minutes afterward, a hussar rushed into the ante-
chamber.

He was a lieutenant dispatched by M. de Charny. He
had ridden at full speed from Sevres.

'' And the king ? " said Marie Antoinette.

" His majesty will be here in a quarter of an hour," re-
plied the officer, who was so much out of breath that he
could scarcely articulate.

'' Safe and well .'' " asked the queen.

*' SafC;, well, and smiling, madame," re2ilied the officer.

" You have seen him, then ?"

" No, madame, but Monsieur do Charny told me so,
when he sent me off."

The queen started once more at hearing this name,
which chance had thus associated with that of the king.

*' I thank you, sir ; you had better rest yourself," said
the queen to the young gentleman.

The young ofticer made his obeisance and withdrew.

Marie Antoinette, taking lier children by tlie hand, went
toward the grand entrance of the palace, where were al-
ready assembled all the courtiers and the servants.

The penetrating eye of the queen perceived on the first
step, a female form attired in white, her elbow leaning

392 TAKING THE BASTILE.

npou the stone balustrade, and looking eagerly into the
darkness, that she miglit first discern the approach of the
king's carriage.

It was Andree, whom even' the presence of the queen
did not arouse from her fixed gaze.

She who generally was so eager to fly to the side of her
mistress evidently had not seen her, or disdained to appear
to have seen her.

She, tlien, bore her ill-will for tlie vivacity which she
had shown that afternoon, and from which cruel vivacity
she had so much suffered ?

Or else, carried away by a jjowerfully interesting senti-
ment, she was, with eager anxiety, looking for the return
of Charny, to whom she had manifested so much affec-
tionate apprehension.

A twofold poniard stab to the queen, wliicli deepened a
wound tiiat was still bleeding.

She lent but an absent ear to the compliments and joy-
ful congratulations of her other friends, and the courtiers
generally.

She even felt for a moment her mind abstracted from
the violet grief which had overwhelmed her all tlie eve-
ning. There was even a respite to the anxiety excited in
her heart by the king's journey, threatened by so many
enemies.

But with her strong mind she soon chased all that was
not legitimate affection from her heart. At the feet of
God she cast her jealousy. She immolated her anger and
her secret feelings to the holiness of her conjugal vow.

It was doubtless God who thus eudowecl her, for her
quiet and support, with this faculty of loving the king,
her husband, beyond every being in the world.

At tliat moment, at least, she so felt, or thought she
felt it ; the pride of royalty raised the queen above all
terrestrial passions ; love of the king was her egotism.

She had, tlierofore, driven from her breast all tlie ]ietty
vengeance of a woman, and the coquettish frivolity of the
lover, when the flambeaus of the escort appeared at the
end of the avenue.

These lights increased in volume every moment, from
the rapidity with wliich the escort advanced.

They could liear the neighing and the hard breathing
of the horses. The ground trembled, amid the silence of

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 393

the night, heneath the weight of the squadrons which sur-
rounded and followed the king's carriage.

The gates were thrown open, the guards rushed forth
to receive the king with shouts of enthusiasm. The car-
riage rolled sonorously over the pavement of the great
courtyard.

Dazzled, deliglited, fascinated, strongly excited by the
varied emotions she had experienced during the day, Dy
those which she then felt, the queen flew down the stairs
to receive the king.

Louis XVI., as soon as he had alighted from his carriage,
ascended the staircase with all the rapidity which was
possible, surrounded as he was by his officers, all agitated
by the events of the day and their triumph ; while in the
courtyard, the guards, mixing unceremoniously with the
grooms and equerries, tore from the carriages and the
harness all the cockades which the enthusiasm of the
Parisians had attached to them.

The king and the queen met upon a marble landing.
The queen, with a cry of joy and love, several times
pressed the king to her heart.

She sobbed as if, on tlius meeting him, she had believed
she was never again to see him.

Yielding thus to the emotions of an overflowing heart,
she did not observe the silent pressure of their hands which
Charny and Andree had just exchanged.

This pressure of the hand was nothing ; but Andree was
at the foot of the steps ; she was the first Charny had seen
and touched.

The queen, after having presented her children to the
king, made Louis XVL kiss them, and then the dauphin,
seeing in his father's hat the new cockade, on which the
torches cast an ensanguined light, exclaimed, with childish
astonishment :

" Why, papa, what have you on your cockade ^ Is it
blood?"

It was the national red.

The queen uttered a cry, and examined it in her turn.

The king bent down his head, under the pretense of again
kissing his little daughter, but in reality to conceal his
shame.

Marie Antoinette, with profound disgust, tore the cock-
ade from the hat, without seeing — the noble, furious

394 TAKING THE BASTILE.

woman — that she was woundiug to the heart a nation that
would one da}' know how to avenge itself.

" Throw it away, sir," said she, "■ throw it away ! "

And she threw this cockade down the stairs, upon which
trampled the feet of the whole escort which accompanied
the king to his apartments.

This strange transition had extinguished all conjugal
enthusiasm in the queen's heart. She looked around, but
without apparent intention, for M. de Charny, who was
standing at his ordinary post near the king, with the stiff
formality of a soldier.

** I thank you, sir," she said to him, when their eyes
met, after several moments of hesitation on the part of
the count ; " I thank you, sir. You have well fulfilled
your promise."

" To whom are you speaking ? " inquired the king.

"To Monsieur de Charny," said she boldly.

" Yes, poor Charny ; he had trouble enough to get near
me. And Gilbert — what has become of him ? 1 do not
see him," added Louis.

The queen, who had become more cautious since the
lesson of the afternoon :

'' Conic in to supper," said she, in order to change the
conversation. ** Monsieur de Charny," pursued she,
*' find the Countess de Charny, and bring her with you.
We will have a family supper."

In this she acted as a queen. But she sighed on observ-
ing that Charny, who, till then, had appeared gloomy, at
once became smiling and joyful.

CHAPTER X.

Billot was in a state of perfect ecstasy.

He had taken the Bastilo ; he had restored Gilbert to
liberty ; ho had been noticed by Lafayette, who called him
by his name ; and, finally, he had seen the burial of
Foulon.

Few men, in those days, were as much execrated as
Foulon. One only could, in this respect, have competed
with him, and this was his son-in-law. M. Berthier de
Savigny.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 395

They had botli of tliem been singularly lucky the day
followiug'lihe capture of the Bastile.

foulon died on that day, and Berthier managed to
escape from Paris.

That which had raised to its climax the unpopularity of
Foulon was, that on the retirement of M. Necker he hud
accepted the place of the virtuous Genevese, as he was
then called, and had been comptroller-general during
three days.

And therefore, there was much singing and dancing at
his burial.

The people had at one time thought of taking the body
out of the coffin, and hanging it ; but Billot had jumped
upon a post, and had made a speech on the respect due to
the dead, and the hearse was allowed to continue on its
way.

As to Pitou, he had become a perfect hero.

Pitou had become the friend of M. Elie and M. Hullin,
who deigned to employ him to execute their commissions.

He was, besides, the confidant of Billot — of Billot, who
had been treated with distinction by M. de Lafayette as
we have already said, and who sometimes employed him as
a police guard about his person, on account of his brawny
shoulders, his herculean fists, and his indomitable courage.

Since tlie journey of the king to Paris, Gilbert, who
had been, through M. Necker, put in communication with
the principal members of the National Assembly and the
municipality, was incessantly occupied with the education
of the republic, still in its infancy.

He, therefore, neglected Billot and Pitou, who, neglected
by him, threw themselves ardently into the meetings of
the citizens, in the midst of which political discussions of
transcendent interest were constantly agitated.

xVt length, one day, after Billot had employed three
hours in giving his opinion to the electors, as to the best
mode of victualing Pnris, and fatigued with his long
speech, though proud of having played the orator, he was
resting with delight, lulled by the monotonous voices of
his successors, which he took good care to listen to, Pitou
came in, greatly agitated, and gliding like an eel through
the Sessions Hall of the electors in the Hotel de Ville, ami,
m a palpitating tone, which contrasted greatly with the
usual placidity of his enunciation :

396 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"Oh, Monsieur Billot I'' said lie, "dear Monsieur

Billot ! "

"Well, what is it?"

" Great news ! "

" Good news ?"

" Glorious news ! "

" What is it, then ? "

" You iuow that I had gone to the club of the * Virtues,'
at the Fontainebleau barrier ?"

" Yes, and what then ? "

" Well, they spoke there of a most extraordinary
event."

" Wliat was it ? "

" Do you know that that villain Foulon passed himself
off for dead, and carried it so far as to allow himself to be
buried ?"

" How ! passed himself for dead ? How say you ? —
pretended to allow himself to be buried ? Nonsense ! He
is dead enough ; for was I not at his funeral ? "

"Notwithstanding that. Monsieur Billot, he is still
living."

"Living?"

" As much alive as you and I are."

".You are mad !"

"Dear Monsieur Billot, lam not mad. The traitor,
Foulon, tlie enemy of the people, the leech of France, the
peculator, is not dead."

" But since I tell you he was buried after an apoplectio
fit ; since I tell you that I saw tlie funeral go by, and even
that I prevented the people from dragging him out of liis
coffin to hang him."

" And I have just seen him alive. Ah, what do you say
to that ? "

" You ? ;'

" As plainly as I now see 3"ou, Monsieur Billot. It ap-
pears that it was one of his servants who died, and tlie
villain gave him an aristocratic funeral. Oh, all is dis-
covered. It was from fear of the vengeance of the people
that he acted thus."

" Tell me all about it, Pitou."

" Come into the vestibule for a moment, then, Monsieur
Billot. AVe shall be more at our ease there."

They left the hall, and went into the vestibule.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 397

'^ First of all, we must know whether Monsieur Bciilly
is here."

"Go on with your story ; he is here."

" Good ! Well, I was at the club of the Virtues, listen-
ing to the speech of a patriot. Didn't he make gram-
matical faults ! It was easily seen that he had not been
educated by the Abbe Fortier."

" Go on, I tell you. A man may be a good patriot, and
yet not be able to read or write."

" That is true," said Pitou. " Well, suddenly a man
came in, completely out of breath. 'Victory ! " cried he,
' victory ! Foulon was not dead ! Foulon is still alive !
I liave discovered him — I have found him !'"

"■ Everybody there was like jou, Father Billot. No one
would believe him. Some said, ' How ! Foulon ? ' ' Yes.*
Others said, ' Pshaw ! impossible I ' And others said,
* Well, while you were at it, you might as well have dis-
covered his son-in-law, Berthier.'"

" Berthier ! " cried Billot.

" Yes, Berthier de Saviguy. Don't you recollect our
intendant at Compiegne, the friend of Monsieur Isidore de
Charny?"

" Undoubtedly ; he who was always so proud with every-
body, and so polite with Catherine ? "

" Precisely," said Pitou; "one of those horrible con-
tractors— a second leech to the French people — the execra-
tion of all human nature — the shame of the civilized world,
as said the virtuous Laustalot."

" Well, go on, go on ! " cried Billot.

" That is true," said Pitou — ad eventum f est ina— which
means to say, Monsieur Billot, ' hasten to the winding up.'
Wait a moment."

" I am waiting ; but you make my blood boil."

" Ah, but listen. I am hot enough, too. I tell yon
that he had given it out that he was dead, and had one of
his servants buried in his place. Fortunately, Providence
was watching."

*' Providence, indeed ! " disdainfully exclaimed the Vol-
tairian Billot.

"I intended to say, the nation," rejoined Pitou, with
humility. " This good citizen, this patriot, out of breath,
who announced the news to us, recognized him at Vitry,
where he had concealed himself."

398 - TAKING THE BASTILE.

*'Ah! ah!"

" Having recognized liim, lie denounced him, and the
83"ndic, "whose name is ^Monsieur Eaepp, instantly arrested
him."

"And what is tlie name of tlie brave patriot who had
the courage to do all this ?"

" Of informing against Foulou ?"

"Yes."

''Well, his name is Monsieur St. Jean."

''St. Joan ! AVhy, that is a lackey's name."

"And he was precisely the lackey of the villain Foulon.
Aristocrat, you are rightly served. Why had you lack-
eys ? "

" Pitou, you interest me," said Billot, going close to the
narrator.

'•' You are very kind. Monsieur Billot. Well, then, here
is Foulon denounced and arrested ; they are bringing him
to Paris. The informer had run on ahead to announce
the news, and receive the reward for his denunciation ;
and, sure enough, in a few moments afterward Foulou
arrived at the barrier."

" And it was there that you saw him ? "

" Yes. He had a very queer look, I can tell yon. They
had twisted a bunch of stinging-nettles round his neck, by
way of cravat."

" What say you ? stinging-nettles ? And what was that
for ? "

" Because it appears that he had said — rascal as he is !
— that bread was for men, oats for horses, but that nettles
were good enough for the people."

" Did he say that, the wretch ? "

" Yes, by Heaven ! he said so. Monsieur Billot."

" Good ! there, now, you are swearing,"

" Bah ! " cried Pitou, with a swaggering air, "between
military men ! Well, they brought him along on foot,
and the whole of the way they were giving him smashing
blows on the back and on his head."

" Oh ! oh ! " cried Billot, somewhat less enthusiastic.

" It was very amusing," continued Pitou, " only that
everybody could not get at him to give hiin a blow, seeing
that there were ten thousand persons hooting after him."

"And after this?" asked Billot, who began to re-
flect.

TAKING THE BASTILE. ^ 399

*^ After that they took him to the president of the St.
Marcel district — a good patriot, you know."

*' Yes — Monsieur Acloque."

'* Cloque — yes, that is it — who ordered him to be taken
to the Hotel de Ville, seeing that he did not know what
to do witli him ; so that you will soon see him."

" But how happens it that it is you who have come to
announce this, and not the famous St. Jean ?"

" Why, because my legs are six inches longer than his.
He had set off before me, but I soon came up with him
and passed him. I wanted to inform you first, that you
might inform Monsieur Bailly of it."

*' What luck you have, Pitou ! "

'•' I shall know much more than this to-morrow."

" And how can you tell that ? "

'•' Because this same St. Jean, who denounced Monsieur
Foulon, proposed a plan to catch Monsieur Berthier, who
has run away."

'' He knows, then, where he is ? "

" Yes ; it appears that he was their confidential man,
this good Monsieur St. Jean ; and that he received a great
deal of money from Foulon and his son-in-law, who wished
to bribe him."

" And he took the money ? "

"■ Certainly ; the money of an aristocrat is always good
to take ; but he said, ' A good patriot will not betray his
nation for money.' "

" Yes," murmured Billot ; " he betrays his masters,
that is all. Do you know, Pitou, that your Monsieur St.
Jean appears to me to be a worthless vagabond ? "

" That is possible, but it matters not ; they will take
Mousienr Berthier as they have taken Master Foulon, and
they will hang them nose to nose. What horrid, wry faces
they will make, looking at each other — hey ?"

" And wliy should they be hanged ? "

''' Why, because they are vile rascals, and T detest them."

" What ! Monsieur Berthier who has been at the farm —
Monsieur Berthier, who, during his tours into the Isle de
France, has drunk our milk and eaten of our breads and
sent the gold buckles to Catherine from Paris ? Oh, no,
no ; they shall not hang him ! "

'* Bah ! " repeated I'itou, ferociously, *' he is an aristo-
crat— a wheedling rascal I "

400 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Billot looked at Pitou with stupefaction. Beneath the
gaze of the farmer, Pitou blushed to the very whites of
his eyes.

Suddenly, the worthy cultivator perceived M. Bailly,
who was going from the hall into his own cabinet ; he
rushed after him to inform him of the news.

But it was now for Billot, in his turn, to be treated with
incredulity.

" Foulon ! Foulon ! " cried the mayor, " what folly ! "

" "Well, Monsieur Bailly, all I can say is, here is Pitou,
who saw him."

" I saw him. Monsieur IVfayor,'" said Pitou, placing his
hand on his heart, and bowing.

And he related to M. Bailly all he had before related to
Billot.

They observed that poor Bailly turned very pale ; he at
once understood the extent of tlie catastrojihe.

''And Monsieur Acloque sends him here ?" murmured
he,

"■ Yes, Monsieur Mayor."

" But how is he sending him ?"

" Oh, there is no occasion to be uneasy," said Piton,
who misunderstood the anxiety of Bailly ; " tlaere are
l^lenty of people to guard the jjrisoner. lie will not be
carried off."

" Would to God he might be carried off ! " murmured
Bailly.

Then, turning to Pitou :

" Plenty of people — what mean you by that, my friend ?"

"I mean plenty of people."

" People ! "

" More ^than twenty thousand men, without counting
the women," said Pitou, triumphantly.

" Unhappy man ! " exclaimed Bailly. *' Gentlemen,
gentlemen assessors ! "

And he related to the electors all he liad just heard.

While he was speaking, exclamations and cries of an-
guish burst forth from all present.

The silence of terror pervaded the hall, during which a
confused, distant, indescribaljle noise assailed the oars of
those assembled, like that produced by the rushing of
blood to the liead in attacks upon the brain.

** What is that ?" inquired an elector.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 401

'* Why, the noise of the crowd, to be sure," replied an-
other.

Suddenly a carriage was heard rolling rapidly across the
square ; it contained two armed men, who helped a third
to alight from it, who was pale and trembling.

Foulon had at length become so exhausted by the ill-
nsage he had experienced, that he could no longer walk,
and he had been lifted into a coach.

Behind the carriage, led on by St. Jean, who was more
out of breath than ever, ran about a hundred young men,
from sixteen to eighteen years of age, with haggard coun-
tenances and flaming eyes.

They cried, "Foulon! Foulon!" running almost as
fast as the horses.

The two armed men were, however, some few steps in
advance of them, which gave them the time to push Fou-
lon into the Hotel de Ville, and its doors were closed
• against the hoarse barkers from without.

'•■ At last we have him here," said his guards to the elec-
tors, who were waiting at the top of the stairs. " By
Heaven ! it was not without trouble ! "

'-■ Gentlemen ! gentlemen I" cried Foulon, trembling,
** will you save me ? "

'' Ah, sir," replied Bailly, with a sigh, " you have been
very culpable."

'•And yet, sir," said Foulon, entreatingly, his agitation
increasing, " there will, I hope, be justice to defend me."

At this moment the exterior tumult was redoubled.

'• Hide him quickly ! " cried Bailly to those around him,
" or "

He turned to Foulon.

"Listen to me," said he; "the situation is serious
enough for you to be consulted. Will you — perhaps it is
not yet too late — will you endeavor to escape from the
back part of the Plotel de Ville ? "

" Oh ! no," exclaimed Foulon ; " I should be recog-
nized— massacred ! "

" Do you prefer to remain here in the midst of us ? I
will do, and these gentlemen will do, all that is humanly
possible to defend you ; will you not, gentlemen ? "

"We promise it," cried all the electors, with one voice.

" Oh ! I prefer remaining with you, gentlemen. Geu-
tlemeuj do not abandon me ! "

402 TAKING THE BASTILE.

'* I have told you, sir," replied Bailly, with dignity,
''that we will do all that may be humanly possible to
save you."

At that moment a frightful clamor arose from the square,
ascended into the air, and invaded the Hotel de Ville
through the open windows.

'' Do you hear ? do you hear ?" murmured Foulon, per-
fectly livid with terror.

In fact, the mob had rushed, howling and frightful to
behold, from all the streets leading to the Hotel de Ville,
and above all, from the Quay Lepelletier and the Rue de
la Vannir.

Bailly went to a window.

Knives, jiikes, scythes, and muskets glistened in the
sunshine. In less than ten minutes the vast square was
filled with peoi^le. It was the whole of Foulon's train, of
which Pitou had spoken, and which had been increased by
curious idlers, who, hearing a great noise, had run to the
Place de Greve, as toward a common center.

All these voices, and there were more than twenty thou-
sand, cried incessantlv :

*' Foulon ! Foulon ! "

Then it was seen that the hundred young men who had
been the precursors of this furious mob pointed out to this
howling mass the gate by which Foulon had entered the
building ; this gate was instantly threatened, and they
began to beat it down with the butt-ends of their muskets
and with crow-bars.

Suddenly it flew open.

The guards of the Hotel de Ville appeared, and advanced
upon the assailants, who, in their first terror, retreated
and left a large oi:)en space in the front of the building.

This guard stationed itself upon the front steps, and
presented a bold front to the crowd.

The officers, moreover, instead of threatening, harangued
the crowd in friendly terms, and endeavored to calm it by ■
their protestations.

Bailly had become quite confused. It was the first time
that the poor astronomer had found himself in opposition
to the popular tempest.

" Wliat is to be done ? " demanded he of the electors ;
" what is to be done ? "

*' We must try him."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 403

" No trial can take place when under the intimidation
of the mob," said Bailly.

" Zounds ! " exclaimed Billot, '' have you not, then, men
enough to defend you ? "

'* We have not two hundred men."

" You must have a reinforcement, then."

" Oh ! if Monsieur Lafayette were but informed of
this ! "

'* Well, send and inform him of it."

" And who would venture to attempt it ? Who could
make his way through such a multitude ? "

" I would," replied Billot.

And he was about to leave the hall.

Bailly stopped him.

"Madman!" cried he, "look at that ocean. You
would be swallowed up even by one of its waves. If you
wish to get to Monsieur de Lafayette, and even then I
would not answer for your safety, go out by one of the
back doors. Go ! "

''' 'Tis well ! " tranquilly replied Billot.

And he darted out of the room with the swiftness of an
arrow.

CHAPTER XL

The clamor, Avhicli kept on constantly increasing from
the square, clearly proved that the exasperation of the mob
was becoming greater. It was no longer hatred that they
felt, it was abhorrence ; they no longer merely tlireatened,
they foamed.

The cries of ''' Down with Foulon ! Death to Foulon ! "
crossed each other in the air, like projectiles in a bombard-
ment. The crowd, which was still augmenting, pressed
nearer to the entrance of the Hotel de Ville, till they, as it
may be said, almost suffocated the civic guards at their
post.

And already there began to circulate among the crowd,
and to increase in violence, those rumors which are the
precursors of violence.

These rumors no longer threatened Foulon only, but the
electors who protected him.

404 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" They have let the prisoner escape ! " said some.

" Let us go in ! let us go in ! " said otliers.

" Let us set fire to the Hotel de Vllle ! "

" Forward ! forward ! "

Bailly felt that as M. de Lafayette did not arrive, there
was only one resource left to them.

And this was, that the electors should themselves go
down, mix in with the groups, and endeavor to pacify the
most furious among them.

" Foulon ! Foulon ! "

Such was the incessant cry, the constant roaring of those
furious waves.

A general assault was preparing ; tlie walls could not
have resisted it.

" Sir," said Bailly to Foulon, *' if you do not show your-
self to the crowd, they will believe that we have allowed
you to escape ; they will force the door, will come in here,
and once here, should they find you, I can no longer be
responsible for anything."

" Oh I I did not know that I was so much execrated ! "
exclaimed Foulon.

And, supported by Bailly, he dragged himself to the
window.

A fearful cry resounded immediately on his presenting
himself. The guards were driven back, the doors broken
in, a torrent of men precipitated themselves up the
staircase, into the corridors, into the rooms, which were
invaded in an instant.

Bailly threw around the prisoner all the guards who
were within call, and then he began to harangue the
crowd.

He wished to make these men understand that to as-
sassinate might sometimes be doing justice, but that it
was never an act of justice.

He succeeded, after having made the most strenuous
efforts, after having twenty times imperiled his own ex-
istence.

"Yes, yes !" cried the assailants, *' let him be tried I
let him be tried ; but let him be hanged ! "

Thoy were at this point in tlio argument Avlion Oeneral
de Lafayette reached lli<^ Hotel dc \'illc, conducted there
by Billot.

Tlie sight of his tricoiored plume, one of the first which

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 405

had been worn, at once assuaged their anger, and the
tumult ceased.

The commander-in-chief of the National Guard had the
way cleared for him, and addressing the crowd, repeated,
though in more energetic terms, every argument that
Bailly had endeavored to enforce.

His speech produced a great effect on all those who were
near enough to hear it, and the cause of Foulon was com-
pletely gained in the electors' hall.

But on the square were twenty thousand furious people,
who had not heard M. de Lafayette, and who remained
implacable in their frenzy,

" Come, now," said Lafayette, at the conclusion of his
oration, very naturally imagining that the effect he had
produced on those who surrounded him had extended to
all outside, ^' come, now, this man must be tried."

" Yes," cried the mob.
' " And consequently I order that he be taken to prison,"
added Lafayette,

'' To prison ! to jjrison ! " howled the mob.

At the same time the general made a sign to the guards
of the Hotel de Ville, who led the prisoner forward.

The crowd outside understood nothing of all that was
going on, excepting that their prey was about to appear.
They had not even an idea that any one had the slightest
hope of disputing it with them.

They scented, if we may be permitted the expression,
the odor of the human flesh Avhicli was descending the
staircase.

Billot had placed himself at the window with several
electors, whom Bailly also joined, in order to follow the
prisoner with their eyes, while he was crossing the square,
escorted by the civic guards.

On the way, Foulou here and there addressed a few in-
coherent words to those around him, which, although they
were protestations of confidence, clearly evinced the most
profound and ill-disguised terror,

** Noble people," said he, while descending the staircase,
" I fear nothing ; I am in the midst of my fellow-citizens."

And already bantering laughs and insults were being
uttered around him, when suddenly he found himself out-
side of tlic gloomy arcliAvay, at the top of the stone steps
which lead into the square.

406 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Immediately one general cry, a cry of rage, a howling
threat, a roar of hatred, burst from twenty thousand lungs.
On this explosion of the public feeling, the guards con-
ducting the prisoner are lifted from the ground, broken,
dispersed ; Fouloa is seized by twenty powerful arms,
raised above their shoulders, and carried into the fatal
corner, under the lamp-post ; ignoble and brutal execu-
tioner of the anger of the people, which they termed their
justice.

Billot, from his window, saw all this, and cried out
against it; the electors also did all they could to stimulate
the guards, buttliey were powerless.

Lafayette, in desjDair, rushed out of the Hotel de Ville,
but he could not break through the first rank of that
crowd, which spread out like an immense lake between
him and tlie victim.

The mere spectators of this scene jumped upon posts,
on window-sills, on every jutting part of a building, in
order to gain a better view, and they encouraged by their
savage shouts the frightful effervescence of the actors.

The latter were playing with their victim, as would a
troop of tigers witli an inoffensive prey.

They were disputing who should hang Foulon ; at last
they understood that if they wished to enjoy his agony, it
was necessary that their several functions should be agreed
uj)on.

But for that he would have been torn to pieces.

Some of them raised up Foulon, who liad no longer
strength enough to cry out.

Others, who had taken off his cravat and torn his coat,
placed a rope round his neck.

And others, wlio had climbed up the lamp-post, had
handed to their companions below the rope whiclithey put
round the neck of the ex-minister.

For a moment they raised Foulon above their heads and
showed him thus to the crowd — a rope twiued round his
neck, and his hands tied behind him.

Then, when the crowd had had due time to contemplate
the sufferer, when they had clapped their hands sufliciently,
the signal was given, and Foulon. jiale and bleeding, was
hoisted up to a level with tlie lantern, amid a hooting
more terrible even than death.

All those who, up to that time, had not been able to see

TAKING THE BASTILE. 407

anything, then perceived the public enemy raised above the
heads of the crowd.

New shouts were then heard ; but these were against the
executioners. Were they about to kill Foulon so expedi-
tiously ?

The executioners merely shrugged their shoulders, and
pointed to the rope.

The rope was old ; it could be seen to give w-ay, strand
by strand. The despairing movements which Foulon
made in his agony at length broke the last strand ; and
Foulon, only half strangled, fell heavily upon the pave-
ment.

He was only at the preface of his torments, he had only
penetrated into the vestibule of death.

They all rushed toward the sufferer ; they were perfectly
secure wth regard to him ; there was no chance of his
escaping them; in falling, he had broken his leg a little
' below the knee.

And yet, some imprecations arose, imprecations which
were unintelligible and calumniatory ; the executioners
were accused ; they were considered as clumsy and un-
skilful. They, on the contrary, who had been so in-
genious, they who had expressly chosen an old worn-out
rope, in the hope that it would break.

A hope which the event, as has been related, had fully
realized.

They made a knot in the rope, and again fixed it round
the neck of the unhappy man, who, half dead, with hag-
gard eyes, looked around, endeavoring to discover whether
in tliat city which is called the center of the civilized uni-
verse, whether one of the bayonets of that king of whom
he was the minister, and who had a hundred thousand,
would not be raised in his defense amid that horde of can-
nibals.

But there was nothing there to meet his eyes but hatred,
but insult, but death.

** At least, kill me at once, without making me endure
these atrocious torments ! " cried the despairing Foulon.

"Well, now," replied a jeering voice, **why should we
abridge your torments ? yon have made ours last long
enough."

"And, besides," said another, "you have not yet had
time enough to digest your nettles.'"

408 . TAKING THE BASTILE.

""Wait, wait a little,'' cried a third; 'Miis sou-in-law,
Bertliier, will be brought to him. There is room euough
for him on the opposite lamp-post ! ''

** We shall see what wry faces the father and sou-in-law
will make at each other,"' added another,

" Finish me ! finish me at once ! •' cried the wretched
man.

During this time, Bailly and Lafayette were begging,
supplicating, exclaiming, and endeavoring to get through
the crowd ; suddenly, Foulon was again hoisted by the
rope, which again broke, and their prayers, their suppli-
cations, their agony, no less painful tlian that of the suf-
ferer himself, were lost, confounded, and extinguished
amid the universal laugh which accompanied this second
fall.

Bailly and Lafayette, Avho, three days before, had been
the sovereign arbiters of the will of six hundred thousand
Parisians, a child now would not listen to them — the
poeple even murmured at them — they were in their way —
they were interrupting this great spectacle.

Billot had vainly given them all the aid of his uncom-
mon strength ; the powerful athlete had knocked down
twenty men, but in order to reach Foulon it would be
necessary to knock down fifty, a hundred, two hundred,
and his strength is exhausted, and when he pauses to
wipe from his brow the jierspiration and the blood which
is streaming from it, Foulon is raised a third time to the
pulley of the lamp-post.

This time they had taken compassion upon him, the
rope wiis a new one.

At last the condemned is dead, the victim no longer
suffers.

Half a minute has sufficed to the crowd to assure itself
that the vital spark was extinguished. And now that the
tiger has killed, he may devour his prey.

The body, thrown from the top of the lamp-post, did
not even fall to the ground. It was torn to pieces before
it reached it.

The head was separated from tlie trunk in a second,
and in another second raised on the end of a pike. It was
very much in fashion in those days to carry the heads of
one's enemies in that way.

At this sanguinary spectacle Bailly was horrified. That

TAKING THE BASTILE. • 409

head appeared to him to be the liead of the Medusa of
ancient days,

Lafayette, pale, his drawn sword in his hand, with dis-
gust repulsed the guards who had surrounded him, to
excuse themselves for not having been the strongest.

Billot, stamping his feet with rage, and kicking right
and left, like one of his own fiery Perche horses, returned
into the Hotel de Ville, that he might see no more of what
was passing on that ensanguined square.

As to Pitou, his fieriness of popular vengeance was
changed into a convulsive movement, and he iiad fled to
the river's bank, where he closed his eyes and stopped his
ears, that he might neither see nor hear.

Consternation reigned in the Hotel de Ville ; the electors
began to comprehend that they would never be able to
direct the movements of the people, but in the manner
which should suit the people.

All at once, while the furious mob were amusing them-
selves with dragging the mutilated remains of Foulon
through the gutters, a new cry, a new shout, rolling like
distant thunder, was heard, proceeding from the opposite
side of the river.

A courier was seen galloping over the bridge. The news
he was bringing was already known to the crowd. They
had guessed it from the signs of their most skilful leaders,
as a pack of hounds take up the scent from the inspiration
of their finest nosed and best practised blood-hounds.

The crowd rushed to meet this courier, whom they sur-
rounded, they scent that he has touched their new prey ;
they feel that he is going to speak of M. Berthier.

And it was true.

Interrogated by ten thousand voices, all howling at once,
the courier is compelled to reply to them.

** Monsieur Berthier do Savigny has been arrested at
Compidgne."

Then he proceeds into the Hotel de Ville, where he
announces the same tidings to Lafayette and to Bailly.

" Good— good ! I knew it," said Lafayette.

" We knew it," said Bailly, " and orders have been given
that he should be kept there."

" Kept there ? " repeated the courier.

" Undoubtedly ; I have sent two commissaries with an
escort."

18— Dumas— Vol. IX.

410 TAKING THE BASTILE.

'' An escort of two hundred men, was it not ?" said an
elector ; " it is more than sufficient."

" Gentlemen," rej^lied the courier, " this is jDrecisely
what I was sent to tell you. The escort has been dis-
persed, and the prisoner carried off by the multitude."

'' Carried off ! " exclaimed Lafayette. '' Has the escort
allowed the prisoner to be carried off ? "

'' Do not blame them, general ; all that it was possible
to do thev did."

" But Monsieur Berthier ? " anxiously inquired Bailly.
"They are bringing him to Paris, and he is at Bourget
by this time."

" But should thev bring him here," cried Bailly, '' he is
lost."

" Quick ! quick ! " cried Lafayette, " five hundred men
to Bourget. Let the commissioners and Monsieur Berthier
stop there— let them stop there. During the night we
will consider what is to be done."

" But who would venture to undertake such a commis-
sion ?" said the courier, who was looking with terror at
that waving sea of heads, every wave of v/hich sent forth
its threatening roar.

"I will ! " cried Billot ; " at least I will save liim."
" But yon would perish in the attempt," cried the
courier ; " tlie road is black with people."
"I will go, nevertheless," said tlic farmer.
" It is useless now," murmured Bailly, who had been
listening to the noises from without. '"Hush! do you
not hear that ? "

They then heard, from the direction of the Porte St.
Martin, a rushing noise, like that of the sea when beating
over the shingles on a beach.
"It is too late," said Lafayette.

" They are coming ! tliey are coming ! " murmured the
courier. " Do you not hear them ? "

** A regimcjit ! a regiment !" cried Lafayette, with that
generous ebullition of humanity which was the most bril-
liant feature of his character.

" What ! By God's death ! " exclaimed Bailly. who
swore perhaps for the first time in his life, "you seem to
forget that our army— ours I— is precisely that crowd
whom you wish to fight."

And he hid his face in his hands.

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 411

The shouts which had beeu heard in the distance were
ye-echoed by the people in the streets, and thus commu-
nicated to the crowd upon the square with the rapidity of
a train of gunpowder.

Then those who were insulting the remains of Foulon
left their sanguinary game, to rush forward in pursuit of
a new vengeance.

The adjacent streets immediately disgorged a large pro-
portion of that howling mob, who hurried from the square
with upraised knives and menacing gestures toward the
Eue St. Martin, to meet the new funeral procession.

CHAPTER XII.

The junction having been accomplished, both parties
were equally eager to return to the square.

A strange scene then ensued.

Some of those ingenious persons whom we have seen
upon the Place de Greve presented to the son-in-law the
head of Foulon on the end of a pike.

]\I. Berthier was comiug along the Rue St. Martin.
They were then just crossing the Rue St. Mery.

He was in his own cabriolet, a vehicle which at that
period was considered as eminently aristocratic — a vehicle
which more than auy other excited popular animadversion ;
for the people had so often complained of the reckless
rapidity with which they were driven, either by young
fops or dancing girls who drove themselves, and which,
drawn by a fiery horse, sometimes ran over, but always
splashed the unfortunate, pedestrian.

Berthier, in the midst of all the shouts, the hootings,
and the threats of the infuriated mob, was talking trun-

?uilly with the elector Riviere, the commissary sent to
Jompiegne to save him, but who, being abandoned by his
colleague, had with much difficulty saved himself.

The ])eople had begun with the cabriolet ; they had torn
off the head of it, so that Berthier and his companion
were completely exposed, not only to the view, but to the
blows, of the populace.

As they moved onward, his misdeeds were related to
him, commented upon, and exaggerated by the popular
fury.

412 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' He wished to starve Paris," cried one.

" He had the rye and wheat cut when it was green ; and
then, a rise in the price of corn having taken place, he
realized enormous sums."

"Not only did he do that," said they, "which was
enough in itself, but he was conspiring."

In searcliing him they had found a pocket-book. In
this pocket-book were incendiary letters, orders for mas-
sacre, proof that ten thousand cartridges had been dis-
tributed to his agents. So said the crowd.

These were all monstrous absurdities ; but, as is well
known, the mob, when in a paroxysm of rage, gives out,
as positive facts, the most absurd improbabilities.

The person whom they accused of all this was a man
who was still young, not being more than 'from thirty to
thirty-two years of age, elegantly dressed, almost smiling,
though greeted every moment by injurious epithets and
even blows. He looked with perfect indifference at the
infamous placards which were held up to him, and with-
out affectation continued his conversation with Riviere.

Two men, irritated at his assurance, had wished to ter-
rify him, and to diminish this self-confidence. They had
mounted on the steps on each side of the cabriolet, and
each of them placed the point of his bayonet on Berthier's
breast.

But Berthier, brave even to temerity, was not to be
moved by such a trifle. He had continued to converse
with the elector, as if those two muskets were but inoffen-
sive accessories to the cabriolet.

The mob, profoundly exasperated by this disdain, which
formed so complete a contrast to the terror of Foulon —
the mob roared round the vehicle, and waited with impa-
tience for tlie moment when, instead of a threat, they
might inflict a wound.

It was then that Berthier had fixed his eyes on a mis-
shapen and bloody object, which was held up and danced
before him, and which he suddenly recognized as the bead
of his father-in-law, and which the ruffians who bore it
held down close to his lips.

They wished to make him kiss it.

M. Riviere, indignant at this brutality, pushed the pike
away with his hand.

Berthiof thanked him by a gesture, and did not even

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 413

deign to turn ronnd to follow tliis hideous trophy with liis
eyes. The executioners carried it behind the cabriolet,
holding it over Berthier's head.

They thus arrived on the Place de Greve, and the pris-
oner, after unheard-of efforts by the civic guards, who
had been reassembled in some order, was delivered into
the hands of the electors of the Hotel de Ville.
- A dangerous charge, a fearful responsibility, which
made Lafayette once more turn pale, and poor Bailly's
heart swell almost to breaking.

The mob, after having hacked away for awhile at the
cabriolet, which had been left at the foot of the front
steps, again placed themselves in the most advantageous
positions, kept guard on all the issues from the building,
made all their preparations, and placed new ropes in the
pulleys of the lanterns.

Billot, at the sight of Berthier, who was ti'anquilly
ascending the great staircase of the Hotel de Ville, tore
his hair, and could not restrain himself from weeping
bitterly.

Pitou, who had left the river's bank, and had come on
the quay again when he thought that Foulon's execution
had been accomplislied — Pitou, terrified, notwithstanding
his hatred for M. Berthier, guilty in his eyes not only of
all the mob reproached him with, but also of having given
gold buckles to Mile. Catherine — Pitou crouched down
sobbing behind a bench.

During this time, Berthier had entered the grand Hall
of Council as coolly as if all the tumult had reference
to some other person, and quietly conversed with the
electors.

He knew the greater portion of them, and was even
intimate with some of them.

The latter avoided him v;ith the instinctive terror with
which timid minds are inspired by the contact of an un-
popular man.

Therefore, Berthier soon found himself almost alone
with Bailly and Lafayette.

He made them relate to him all the particulai's of Fou-
lon's death. Then, shrugging up liis shoulders :

"Yes," said he, ''I can understand it. They hate us
because we are the instruments with which royalty has
tortured the people."

41-1 TAKING THE BASTILE.

''Great crimes are laid at your door, sir," said Bailly,
austerely.

'• Sir," replied Berthier, ''if Iliad committed all the
crimes with which I am reproached, I should be less or
more than a man — a wild beast or a demon. But I shall
be tried, 1 iiresume, and theu the truth will be ascer^
tained."

"Undoubtedly," said Bailly.

"Well, then," rejoined Berthier, "that is all I desire.
They have my correspondence, and it will be seen whose
orders I have obeyed ; and the responsibility will fall on
those to whom it rightly appertains."

The electors cast their eyes ui^on the square, from which
arose the most frightful clamor.

Berthier understood this mute reply.

Then Billot, pushing through the throng which sur-
rounded Builly, went up to the intendant, and offering
his huge honest hand :

" Good-day, Monsieur de Savigny," said he to him.

"Howl is that you, Billot?" cried Berthier, laugh-
ing, and grasping firmly the hand which was held out to
him. " Wliat, have you come to Paris to join in these
disturbances, you, my worthy farmer, who used to sell
your wheat so well in the market at Villers-Cotterets,
Cressy, and Soissons ? "

Billot, notwithstanding his democratic teiulerness, could
not but admire the tranquillity of this man, who could
thus smile at a moment when his life was hanging by a
thread.

" Install yourselves, gentlemen," said Bailly to the
electors ; we must now proceed to the examination of the
charges against the accused."

" Be it so," said Berthier; "but I juust warn you of
one thing, gentlemen, and that is, that I am perfectly
exhausted. For the last two days I have not slept. To-
day, from Compiegne to Paris, I have been puslied about,
beaten, dragged along. When I asked for something to
eat, they offered me hay, which 13 not excessively refresh-
ing. Tlierefore, give me some place where I can sleep, if
it ho only for an hour."

At that moment Lafayette left the room for a short
time, to ascertain the state of matters outside. He re-
turned more dispirited than ever.

TAKING THE BASTILE. • 415

te

My dear Bailly," said he to the mayor, *' exasperation
is at its height ; to keep Monsieur Berthier here would be
exposing ourselves to a siege. To defend the ilotel de
Ville would be giving these furious madmen the pretext
which they wish. Not to defend the Hotel de Ville would
be acquiring the habit of yielding every time Ave were
attacked."

Daring this time, Berthier had sat down, and then
stretched himself at full length upon a bench.

He was preparing himself to sleep.

The desperate howls from below were audible to him,
for he was near an open window ; but they did not disturb
him. His countenance retained the serenity of a man
who forgets all, to allow sleep to weigh down his eyelids.

Bailly was deliberating with the electors and Lafayette.

Billot had his eyes fixed upon Berthier.

Lafayette was rapidly taking the votes of the electors ;
after which, addressing the prisoner, who was beginning
to slumber :

*' Sir," said he, '' be pleased to get ready."

Berthier heaved a sigh, then, raising himself on his
elbow :

*'Eeady for Avhat ?" he inquired.
• " These gentlemen have decided that you are to be
transferred to the Abbaye."

" To the Abbaye ? Well, be it so," said the intendant.
**But," continued he, looking at the confused electors,
and whose confusion he readily comprehended, "but, one
way or the other, let us finish this.''

And an explosion of anger and furious impatience long
restrained burst forth from the square.

" No, gentlemen, no," exclaimed Lafayette, " we can
not allow him to depart at this moment ! "

Bailly's kind heart and undaunted courage impelled
him to come to a sudden resolution. He went down into
the square with two of the electors, and ordered silence.

The people knew as well as he did what he was about to
say; but, us they were fully bent on committing another
crime, they would not even listen to a reproach ; and as
Bailly was opening his lips to speak, a deafening clamor
arose from the mob, drowning his voice before a single
word could be heard.

Bailly, seeing that it would be impossible for him to

416 TAKING THE BA8TILE.

proffer even a syllable, returned into the Hotel de Ville,
pursued by cries of ** Berthier — Bertliier ! "

But otlier cries resounded in the midst of those, cries
similar to the shrill notes which suddenly are heard in
the choruses of demons by AVeber or by Meyerbeer, and
these were, *' To the lantern — to the lantern ! "

On seeing Bailly come back pale and disheartened, La-
fayette rushed out in his turn. He is young, he is ardent,
he is beloved. That which the old man could not effect,
his popularity being but of yesterday, he, Lafayette — lie,
the friend of Washington and of Necker, would undoubt-
edly obtain at the first word.

But in vain was it that the people's general threw him-
self into the most furious groups. In vain did lie speak
in the name of justice and humanity. In vain was it that,
recognizing, or feigning to recognize, certain leaders of
the people, did he supplicate them, grasping their hands,
and endeavoring to allay their fury.

Not one of his words was listened to ; not one of his
gestures was understood ; not one of the tears he shed
was seen.

Repulsed step by step, he threw himself upon his knees
on the perron of the Hotel de Ville, conjuring these tigers,
whom he called his fellow-citizens, not to dishonor the
nation, not to dishonor themselves, not to elevate to the
rank of martyrs guilty men, to whom the law would award
a degrading death, which degradation was a portion of
their punishment.

As he persisted in his entreaties, he was at last person-
ally threatened in his turn : but he defied all threats.
Some of these furious wretches drew their knives and
raised them as if to strike.

He bared his breast to their blows, and their weapons
were instantly lowered.

But if they thus threatened Lafayette, the threat Avas
Btill more serious to Berthier.

Lafayette, thus overcome, re-entered the H6tel de Ville
as Bailly had done.

The electors had all seen Lafayette vainly contending
against the tempest. Their last rampart was overthrown.

They decided that the guard of the 116tel de Ville should
at once conduct Berthier to the Abbaye.

It was sending Berthier to certain death.

TAKING THE BASTILE. ' 417

'' Come, then," said Earthier, when this decision was
announced. And eyeing all these men with withering
contempt, he took his station in the center of the guards,
after having thanked Bailly and Lafayette for their exer-
tions and, in his turn, held out his hand to Billot.

Bailly turned away his face to conceal his tears — La-
fayette, to conceal his indignation.

Berthier descended the staircase with the same firm step
with which he had ascended it.

At the moment that he appeared on the perron, a furious
howl assailed him, making even the stone step on which he
had placed his foot tremble beneath him.

But he, disdainful and impassible, looked at all those
flashing eyes calmly and unflinchingly, and, shrugging his
shoulders, pronounced these words :

" What a fanatic people ! What is there to make them
howl thus?"

He had scarcely uttered these words, when he was seized
upon by the foremost of the mobo They had rushed on to
the 2)erron itself, and clutched him, tliough surrounded
by his guards. Their iron hands dragged him along. He
lost his footing, and fell into the arms of his enemies, who
in a second dispersed his escort.

Then an irresistible tide impelled the prisoner over the
same path, stained with blood, which Foulon had been
dragged over only two hours before.

A man was already seated astride the fatal lamp, holding
a rope in his hand.

But another man had clung to Berthier, and this man
was dealing out with fury and delirium, blows and impre-
cations on the brutal executioners.

He continually cried :

'' You shall not have him ! You shall not kill him ! "

This man was Billot, whom despair had driven mad,
and mad as twenty madmen.

To some he shrieked :

" I am one of the conquerors of the Bastile ! "

And some of those wlio recognized him became less
furious in their attack.

To others he said :

" Let him be fairly tried. I will be responsible for him.^
If he is allowed to escape, you shall hang me in his stead."

Poor Billot I poor worthy man I The whirlwind swept

418 TAKING THE BASTILE.

him away, he and Berthier, as the water-spout carries
awiiv a feather or a straw in its vast spirals.

lie moved on witiiout perceiving anything, lie had
reached the fatal spot.

Tlie tlmnderbolt is less swift.

Berthier, who had been dragged along backward — Ber-
thier, whom they had raised up, seeing that they stopped,
raised his eyes, and perceived the infamous, degrading
halter swinging above his head.

By an effort as violent as it "was unexpected, he tore him-
self from the grasp of those who held him, snatched a
musket from tlie hands of a National Guard, and inflicted
several wounds on his self-appointed executioners with liis
bayonet.

But in a second a thousand blows were aimed at him
from behind. He fell, and a thousand other blows from
the ruffuins who encircled him rained down upon him.

Billot had disappeared beneath the feet of the assassins.

Berthier had not time to suffer. Ilis life's blood and
his soul rushed at once from his body tlirough a thousand
ga})ing wounds.

Then Billot was witness to a spectacle more hideous
than he had yet seen. He saw a fiend plunge his hand
into the open breast of the cor^^se, and tear out the still
smoking heart.

Then, sticking this heart on the point of liis saber, he
held it above the heads of the shouting mob. which opened
before him as he advanced, and he carried it into the
Hotel de Ville, and laid it on the table of the grand coun-
cil, where the electors hold their sessions.

Billot, that man of iron nerve, could not support this
frightful sight ; he fell fainting against a post about ten
paces from the fatal lantern.

Lafayette, on seeing this infamous insult offered to his
authority — offered to the revolution which he directed, or,
ratlier, which he had believed he should direct — Lafayette
broke his sword, and threw it at tlie faces of the assassins.

Pitou ran to i)i('k up the farmer, carried liim off in his
arms, whispering into his ear :

'• Billot ! father Billot, take care ; if they see that yon
are fainting, they will take you for his accomplice, and
will kill you, too. That would be a pity — so good a
patriot 1 **

TAKING THE BASTILE. ' 4I9

And thereupon, lie dragged him toward the river, con-
cealing him as Avell as he was able from the inquisitive
looks of some zealous patriots who were murmuring.

CHAPTER XIII.

Billot, who, conjointly with Pitou, had been engaged
in all the glorious liberations, began to perceive that the
cup was becoming bitter. When he had completely re-
covered his senses, from the refreshing breezes on the
river's bank :

*' Monsieur Billot," said Pitou to him, " I regret Yil-
lers-Cotterets — do not you ? "

These words, like the refreshing balm of calmness and
virtue, aroused the farmer, whose vigor returned to him,
and he pushed through the crowd, to get away at once
from the scene of butchery.

" Come," said he to Pitou, '^you are rigiit."

And he at once determined on going to find Gilbert,
who was residing at Versailles, but who, without having
revisited the queen after the journey of the king to Paris,
had become the right hand of Xecker, who had been
re-appointed minister, and was endeavoring to organize
property by generalizing poverty.

Pitou had as usual followed Billot.

Both of them were admitted into the study in which
the doctor was writing.

*' Doctor," said Billot, " I am going to return to my
farm."

" And why so ?" inquired Gilbert.

" Because I hate Paris."

''Ah, yes! I understand," coldly observed Gilbert.
" You are tired,"

" Worn out."

''You no longer like the revolution ?"

" I should like to see it ended."

Gilbert smiled sorrowfully.

" It is only now beginning," he rejoined.

"Oh! "exclaimed Billot.

" That astonishes you, Billot ? " asked Gilbert.

" AVhat astonishes me the most, is your perfect cool-
ness."

420 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"My friend," said Gilbert to him, ''do yon know
whence my cooluess proceeds ? "

" It can only proceed from a firm conviction."

" Guess what that conviction is."

''That all will end well."

Gilbert smiled still more gloomily than the first time.

"'No ; on the contrary, from the conviction that all will
end badly."

Billot cried out with astonishment.

As to Pitou, he opened his eyes to an enormous width.
He thought the argument altogether illogical.

'"' Let'us hear," said Billot — "let us liear ; for it seems
to me that I did not rightly understand you."

" Take a chair, Billot," said Gilbert, " and sit down
close to me."

Billot did as he was ordered.

" Closer, closer still, that no one may hear but your-
self."

" And I, Monsieur Gilbert ?" said Pitou, timidly, mak-
ing a move toward the door, as if he thought the doctor
wished him to withdraw.

" Oh, no ; stay here," re2:)lied the doctor. "You are
young ; listen."

Pitou opened his ears, as he had done his eyes, to their
fullest extent, and seated himself on the ground, at Father
Billot's feet.

This council was a singular spectacle, which was thus
held in Gilbert's study, near a table heaped up with let-
ters, documents, new pamphlets, and newspapers, and
within four steps of a duor, which was besieged by a
swarm of petitioners, or people having some grievance to
complain of. These people were all kept in order by an
old clerk, who was almost blind and had lost an arm.

"I am all attention," said Billot. " Xow explain your-
self, my master, and tell us how it is that all will finish
badly.''

"I will tell you. Billot. Do you see what I am doing
at this moment, my friend ?"

" You are writing lines."

" ]'ut the moaning of those lines. Billot ?"

" How would you have me guess that, when you know
that I cannot even read them ?"

Pitou timidly raised his head a little above the table.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 421

and cast his eyes on the paper which was lying before the
doctor.

"^ They are figures/' said he.

" That is true ; they are figures, and which are at once
the salvation and ruin of France."

*' Well, now ! " exclaimed Billot.

" Well, now ! well, now ! " repeated Pitou.

'' These figures, when they are presented to-morrow,"
continued the doctor, *' will go to the king's palace, to
the mansions of the nobility, and to the cottage of the
poor man, to demand of all of them one quarter of their
income."

" Hey ? " ejaculated Billot.

'' Oh, my poor aunt Angelique ! " cried Pitou, *' what a
wry face she will make ! "

'' What say you to this, my worthy friend ?" said Gil-
bert. ''People make revolutions, do they not ? Well,
they must pay for them."

''Perfectly just!" heroically replied Billot. "Well,
be it so — it will be paid."

*' Oh, you are a man who is already convinced, and
there is nothing to astonish me in your answers ; but
those who are not convinced ? "

" Those who are not so ? "

*' Yes ; what will they do ? "

*' They will resist ! " replied Billot, and in a tone which
signified that he would resist energetically if he were re-
quired to pay a quarter of his income to accomplish a
work which was contrary to his convictions.

" Then there would be a conflict," said Gilbert.

" But the majority ?" said Billot.

" Conclude your sentence, my friend."

"The majority is there to make known its will."

" Then there would be aggression."

Billot looked at Gilbert, at first doubtingly, and then a
ray of intelligence sparkled in his eye.

" Hold, Billot ! " said the doctor. " I know what you
are about to say to me. The nobility and the clergy pos-
sess everything, do they not ? "

"That is undoubted," replied Billot, " and therefore
the convents "

" The convents ? "

" The convents overflow with riches.'*

422 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Xotum certnynque," grumbled Pitou.

" The nobles do not pay taxes in proportion to their in-
come. Thus I, a farmer, pay more tlian twice the amount
of taxes paid by my neighbors, the three brothers Chariiy,
who have between tliem an income of two hundred thou-
sand livres."

" But, let us see," continued Gilbert. " Do you believe
that the nobles and the priests are less Frenchmen than
you are ?"

Pitou picked up his ears at this proposition, which
sounded somewhat heretical at the time, when patriotism
was calcuhated by the strength of elbows on the Place de
Greve.

" You do not believe a word of it. do you. my friend ?
You cannot imagine that these nobles and priests, who
absorb everything and give back nothing, are as good
patriots as you are ? "

"That is true."

" An error, my dear friend, an error. They are even
better, and I will prove it to you."

•' Oh ! that, for example, I deny."

" On account of their privileges, is it not V

*' Zounds ! yes."

" Wait a moment."

''Oh, I can wait."

" Well, then, I certify to you. Billot, that in three
davs from this time the person who will have the most
privileges in France will be the man who possesses noth-
ing."

" Then I shall be that person," said Pitou, gravely.

"Well, yes, it will be you."

" But how can that be ?"

" Listen to me. Billot. These nobles, and these eccle-
siastics, whom you accuse of egotism, are just beginning
to be seized with that fever of patriotism which is about
to make the tour of France. At this moment they are
assembled like so many sheep on the edge of the ditch ;
they are deliberating ; the boldest of them will be the first
to leap over it, and this will happen to-morrow, perhaps
to-night ; and after him, the rest will jump it."

"What is the meaning of that. Monsieur Gilbert ?"

" It means to say that, vnlnntarily abandoning their
prerogatives, feudal lords will liberate their peasants, pro-

TAKING THE BASTILE. 423

prietors of estates their farms and the rents due to them,
the dove-cote lords their pigeons."

" Oh, oh ! " ejaculated Piton, with amazement ; "you
think they will give up all that ? "

" Oh I" cried Billot, suddenly catching the idea, *^ that
will be splendid liberty, indeed."

*' Well, then, and after that, when shall we all be free —
what shall we do next ?"

"The deuce!" cried Billot, somewhat embarrassed,
** what shall be done next ? " Why, we shall see,"

"Ah ! there is the great word," exclaimed Gilbert —
"We shall see."

He rose from his chair with a gloomy brow, and walked
up and down the room for a few minutes ; then, returning
to the farmer, whose hand he seized with a violence which
eeenied almost a threat :

. " Yes," said he, " we shall see. We shall all see — you,
as I shall ; he, as you and I shall ; and that is precisely
what I was reflecting on just now, when you observed that
composure which so much surprised you."

" Yon terrify me. The people united, embracing one
another, forming themselves into one mass to insure their
general prosperity — can that be a subject which renders
you gloomy. Monsieur Gilbert ?"

The latter shrugged up his shoulders.

" Then," said Billot, questioning in his turn, " what
will you say of yourself if you now doubt, after having
prepared everything in the old world, by giving liberty to
the new ? "

"Billot," rejoined Gilbert, "you have just, without at
all suspecting it, uttered a word which is the solution of
the enigma — a word which Lafayette has uttered, and
which no one, beginning with himself, perhaps fully un-
derstands. Yes, we have given liberty to the new world."

" You I — and Frenchmen, too ! That is magnificent."

" It is magnificent ; but it will cost us dear," said Gil-
bert, sorrowfully.

"Pooh! the money is spent; the bill is paid," said
Billot, joyously. "A little gold, a great deal of blood,
and the debt is liquidated."

"Blind enthusiast!" said Gilbert, "who sees not in
this dawning in the west the germ of ruin to us all ?
Alas ! why do I accuse them, when I did not see more

424 TAKING THE BASTILE.

clearly than they ? They having given liberty to the new
world, I fear, I fear greatly, was totally ruining the old
one."

" Rernm novus nascitur ordo!" exclaimed Pitou, with
great revolutionary self-possession.

''Silence, child," said Gilbert,

'' Was it, then, more difficult to overcome the English
than it is now to quiet the French ?" asked Billot.

"A new world," repeated Gilbert — "that is to say, a
vast open space, a clear table to work upon ; no laws, but
no abuses ; no ideas, but no prejudices. In France, tliirty
thousand square leagues of territory for thirty millions of
people ; that is to say, that, should the space be equally
divided, scarcely room for a cradle or a grave for each.
Out yonder, in America, two hundred thousand square
leagues for three millions of persons ; frontiers whicli are
ideal, for they border on the desert, Avhich is to say im-
mensity. In those two hiindred thousand leagues, navi-
gable rivers, having a course of a thousand leagues ; virgin
forests, of which God alone knows the limits ; that is to
say, all the elements of life, of civilization, and of a bril-
liant future. Oil I how easy it is, Billot, when a man is
called Lafayette, and is accustomed to wield a sword,
when a man is called Washington, and is accustomed to
reflect deeply — how easy it is to combat against walls of
wood, of earth, of stone, of human flesh. But when, in-
stead of founding, it is necessary to destroy ; when Ave
see in the old order of things that we are obliged to attack
walls of bygone crumbling ideas, and beliind the ruins
even of tlicse walls that crowds of people and of interests
still take refuge ; when, after having found the idea, we
find that, in order to make the people adopt it, it will be
necessary, perlia])S, to decimate that people, from the old
who remember, down to the child who has still to learn,
from the monument which is the recollection down to tlie
instinct which is the germ of it — then, oh then. Billot !
it is a task which will make all those shudder who can see
behind the horizon. I am far-sighted, Billot, and I
shudder."

" Pardon me, sir," said Billot, with his sound good
sense ; "you accused me, a short time since, of hating tlie
revolution, and now you are making it execrable to me."

" But have I told you that I renounce it ?"

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 425

" Errare hwnanum est," murmured Pitou, " aed perse'
verare diabolicum. "

And he drew his feet toward him with his hands.

"I shall, however, persevere," continued Gilbert ; ''for
although I see the obstacles, I can perceive the end, and
that end is splendid. Billot. It is not only the liberty of
France that I am dreaming of, but it is equality before
the laws — equality of rights ; it is not the fraternity of our
own citizens, but fraternity between all nations. I may
be losing my own soul, my body may perliaps perish in the
struggle," continued Gilbert, in a melancholy tone, " but
it matters not ; the soldier who is sent to the assault of a
fortress, sees the cannon on its ramparts, sees the balls
with which they are loaded, sees the match placed near
the touch-hole ; he sees even more than this, he sees the
direction in which they are pointed, he feels that this
piece of black iron may pass through his own breast ; but
he still rushes onward — the fortress must be taken. Well,
we are soldiers, father Billot. Forward, then ! and over
the heaps of our dead bodies may one day march the gen-
erations of which this boy now present is the advance
guard."

" I do not really know why you despair, Monsieur Gil-
bert. Is it because an unfortunate man was this day mur-
dered on the Place de Greve ? "

** And why were you, then, so much horrified ? Go,
then, Billot, and cut throats also."

"' Oh ! what ai'e you now saying, Monsieur Gilbert ? '*

" Zounds ! a man should be consistent. You came
here, all pale, all trembling — you who are so brave, so
strong — and you said to me, ' I am tired out.' I laughed
in your face. Billot ; and now that I explain to you why
you were pale, why you were worn out, it is you who laugh
at me in turn."

'' Speak, speak ; but first of all give me the hope that I
shall return cured, consoled, to my fields."

"Your fields ! Listen to me, Billot — all our hope is
there. The country — a sleeping revolution, which wakes
up once in a thousand years, and gives royalty the vertigo
every time it awakens — the country will wake up in its
turn, when the day shall come for purchasing or conquer-
ing tliose wrongly acquired territories of which you just
now spoke, and with which the nobility and clergy are

426 TAKING THE BASTILE.

gorged, even to choking. But to urge on the country to
•d harvest of ideas, it will be necessary to urge on the
countrymen to the conquest of the soil. Man, by becom-
ing a proprietor, becomes free ; and in becoming free, he
becomes a better man. To us, then, privileged laborers,
to whom God has consented that the veil of the future
shall be raised, to us, then, the fearful work, which, after
giving liberty to tlie people, shall give them the property
of the soil. Here, Billot, will be a good work, and a sorry
recompense, perliaps, but an active, powerful work, full of
joys and vexations, of glory and calumny, Tlie country
is still lulled in a dull, impotent slumber, but it awaits
only to be awakened by our summons, and that new dawn
shall be our vp^ork. AVhen once the country is awakened,
the sanguinary portion of our labors will be terminated,
and its peaceable labors, the labors of the country, will
commence."

"What, then, do you now ad vise that I should do, Mon-
sieur Gilbert ? "

"If you wish to be useful to your country, to the na-
tion, to your brother men, to the world, remain here. Bil-
lot ; take a luuumcr and work in this Vulcan's furnace,
which is forging thunders for the whole world."

" Remain here to see men butch eredr'an.d perhaps at
last learn to butcher them myself."

" How so ? " said Gilbert, with a faint smile. "You,
Billot, become a murderer ! What is it you are saying ? "

"I say that should I remain here as you request me,"
cried Billot, trembling with agitation, " I say that the
first man whom I shall see attaching aroj)o to a lamp-jjost,
I will hang that man with these my hands."

Gilbert's smile became more positive.

" Well, now," said he, " I find you understand me, and
now you also are a murderer."

" Yes ; a murderer of vile wretches."

"Tell me. Billot, you liave seen Do Losme, De Launay,
De Flessellcs, Foulou, and Berthicr slaughtered ?"

" Yes."

" What epithet did those who slaughtered them apply
to them ?"

" Thev call them wretches."

"Oh ! that is true," said Piton, "they did call them
wretches."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 42T

^' Yes ; but it is I who am right, and not they," rejoined
Billoc.

'* You will be in the right," said Gilbert, *' if you hang
them ; but in the wrong if they hang you."

Billot huag down his head under this heavy blow; then
suddenly raising it again with dignity :

"Will you venture to maintain," said he, 'Hhat those
who assassinate defenseless men, and who are under the
safeguard of public honor, will you maintain that they are
as good Frenchmen as I am ? "

" Ah ! " said Gilbert, " that is quite another question.
Yes, in France we have several sorts of Frenchmen. First
of all, we have the people, to which Pitou belongs, to
which you belong, to which I belong ; then we have the
French clergy, and then the French nobility. Three
classes of Frenchmen in France, each French in his own
■point of view, that is to say, as regards their interests, and
this without counting the King of France, who is also a
Frenchman in his way. Ah ! Billot, here you see in these
different modes of all these Frenchmen considering them-
selves French, here is the real secret of the revolution.
You will be a Frenchman in your own way, the Abbe
Maury will be a Frenchman in liis way, Mirabeau will be
a Frenchman in a mode that differs from that of the Abbe
Maury, and the king will be a Frenchman in another way
than that of Mirabeau. Well, Billot, my excellent friend,
thou man of upright heart and sound judgment, you liave

i'ust entered upon the second part of the question which
am now engaged upon. Do me the pleasure. Billot, to
cast your eyes on this."

And Gilbert presented a printed paper to tlie farmer.

'' Wliat is this ?" asked Billot, taking the paper.

''Read."

" Why, you know full well that I cannot read."

" Tell Pitou to read it, then."

Pitou rose, and standing on tiptoes looking at the paper
over the farmer's shoulders :

" This is not French," said he ; '* it is not Latin, neither
is it Greek."

''It is English," replied Gilbert.

"1 do not know English," said Pitou, proudly.

•'I do," said Gilbert, "and will translate the I'^^per to
you ; but, in the first place, read the signature."

428 TAKING THE BASTILE.

''PIT T," spelled Pi Lou ; 'Mvhat does PITT
mean ? "

*' I will explain it to )'0u," replied Gilbert.

CHAPTER XIV.

''Pitt," rejoined Gilbert, '' is the son of Pitt.'*

" "Well, now ! " cried Piton ; " that is just as we have it
in the Bible. There is, then, Pitt the first and Pitt the
second ? "

" Yes, and Pitt the first, my friends — listen attentively
to what I am going to tell you "

'" "We are listening," replied Billot and Pitou at the same
moment.

" This Pitt the first was, during thirty years, the sworn
enemy of France ; he combated in the retirement of liis
cabinet, to which he was nailed by the gout, Montcalm
and Vaudreuil in America, Bailly de Suffren and D'Estaing
on the seas, Noaillcs and Broglie on the continent. This
Pitt the first made it a principle with him that it was
necessary to destroy the influence which France had gained
over the whole of Europe ; during thirty years he recon-
quered from us, one by one, all our colonics — one by one,-
all our factories, the whole of our possessions in the East
Indies, a hundred leagues of territory in Canada, and tlien,
when he saw that France was three quarters ruined, he
brings forward his son to ruin her altogether."

"■ Ah, ah I " exclaimed Billot, evidently much interested,
''so that the Pitt we have now "

" Precisely," replied Gilbert, " he is the son of the Pitt
whom we have had, and whom you already know, fatlier
Billot, whom Piton knows, whom all the universe knows,
and this Pitt junior was thirty years old this last May."

"Thirty years old?"

" Yes ; you see that he has well employed his time, my
friends. Notwithstanding his youth, he has now governed
England for seven years — seven years has he put in practise
the tlioory of liis fatlicr."

"Well, then, we are likely to have him for a long time
yet," said Billot.

"And it is the more probable that the vital qualities

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 429

are very tenacious among the Pitts. Let me give you a
proof of it."

Pitou and Billot indicated by a motion of their heads
that they were listening with the greatest attention.

Gilbert continued :

" In 1778, the father of our enemy was dying ; his
physicians announced to him that his jife was merely hang-
ing by a thread, and that the slightest effort would break
that thread. The English Parliament was then debating
on the question of abandoning the American colonies and
yielding to their desire for independence, in order to put
a stop to the war which threatened, fomented as it was by
the French, to swallow up the riches and all the soldiers
of Great Britain. It was at the moment when Louis XVI.,
our good king, he on whom the Avhole nation has just
conferred the title of ' Father of French Liberty,' had
-solemnly recognized the independence of America ; and
on the fields of battle in that country, and in their councils,
the swords and genius of the French had obtained the
mastery. England had offered to Washington, that is to
say, to the chief of the insurgents, the recognition of
American nationality on condition that the new nation
should aHy itself with England against France."

''But," said Billot, " it appears to me this proposition
was not a decent one, to be either offered or accepted."

'•' j\ry dear Billot, this is what is, called diplomacy, and
in the political world, these sorts of ideals are much ad-
mired. Well, Billot, however immoral you may consider
the matter, in spite of Washington, the most faithful of
men, Americans would have been found to accede to this
degrading concession on the part of England. But Lord
Chatham, ti»e father of Pitt, the man who had been given
over by the physicians, this dying man, this phantom who
was already standing knee-deep in the grave, this Ghatham
wlio, it might be thought, could have desired naught more
on this earth but repose, before sleeping beneath his mon-
ument this feeble old man determined on appearing in
the Parliament where the question was about to be dis-
cussed.

" On entering the House of Lords he was loaning on the
one side on the arm of his son William Pitt, then only
nineteen years of age, and on the other on that of liis son-
in-law, Lord Mahon. He was attired in his magnificent

430 TAKING THE BASTILE.

robes, which formed a derisive contrast to his own emaci-
ated form. Pale as a specter, his eyes half extinguished
beneath his languishing eyelids, he desired his friends to
lead him to his usual seat on the bench appropriated to
earls, while all the lords rose at his entrance, astounded
at the unexpected apparition, and bowed to him in admi-
ration as the Roman Senate might have done had Tiberius,
dead and forgotten, returned among them. lie listened
in silence and with profound attention to the speech of
the Duke of Richmond, the mover of the proposition, and
when he had concluded, Lord Chatham rose to reply.

" Then this dying man summoned up strength enough
to speak for three whole hours ; he found fire enough
within his heart to lend lightnings to his eyes ; in his
soul he found accents which stirred up the hearts of all
who heard him.

" It is true that he was speaking against France, it is
true that he was instilling into the minds of his country-
men the hatred which he felt, it is true that he had called
up all his energies, all his fervent eloquence, to ruin and
devour this country, the hated rival of his own. He forbid
that America should be recognized as independent, he for-
bid all sort of compromise, he cried war I war ! He spoke
as Hannibal spoke against Rome, as Cato against Carthage ?
He declared that the duty of every loyal Englishman was
to perish ruined, rather than to suffer that a colony, even
one single colony, should detach itself from the mother
country. Having concluded his peroration, having hurled
his last threat, he fell to the ground as if thunder-stricken.

"■ He had nothing more to do in this world — he was
carried expiring from the house.

" Some few days afterward he was dead."

*'0h ! oh ! cried both Billot and Pitou, simultaneously,
'' what a man this Lord Chatham was ! "

" He was the father of the young man of thirty who is
now occupying our attention," pursued Gilbert. " Lord
Chatham died at the age of seventy. If the son lives to
the same age, we shall have to endure William Pitt forty
years longer. Tliis is the man, father Billot, with whom
we have to contend ; this is the man who now governs
Great Britain, who well remembers the names of Lameth,
>f Rochambeau, and Lafayette, who at this moment knows
the name of esQvy man in the National Assembly ; he who

TAKING THE BASTILE. • 431

has sworn a deadly hatred to Louis XVI., the author of
the treaty of ] 778 ; the man, in short, who will not breathe
freely as long as there shall be a loaded musket in France
and a full pocket. Do you begin to understand ? "

" I understand that he has a great detestation of France ;
yes, that is true, but I do not altogether see your meaning."

" Nor I," said Pitou.

" Well, then, read these four words." And he pre-
sented a paper to Pitou.

" English again ! " cried Pitou.

" Yes ; these are the words — ' Don't mind the money.' "

'' I hear the words, but I do not understand them,' re-
joined Pitou.

Gilbert translated the words, and then :

'' But more than this ; he further on reiterates the same
advice for he says : * Tell them not to be sparing of money,
and they need not send me any accounts.' "

'' Then they are arming," said Billot.

" No ; they are bribing/"

" But to whom is this letter addressed ? "

" To everybody and to nobody. The money which is
thus given, thus strewn abroad, thus lavished, is given to
peasants, to artisans, to wretches, to men, in short, who
will degrade our revolution."

Father Billot held down his head ; these words explained
many things.

" Would you have knocked down De Launay with the
butt-end of a musket. Billot ?"

''No."

" Would you have killed Flesselles by firing a pistol at
him?" ^ h i

"No."

" Would you have carried the still bleeding heart of
Berthier and placed it on the table of tlie electors ? "

"Infamy!" exclaimed Billot. "On the contrary,
however guilty this man may' have been, I would have al-
lowed myself to be torn to pieces could I have saved him
by it ; and the proof of this is that I was wounded in de-
fending him, and that but for Pitou, who dragged me to
the river-side "

"Oh ! tliat is true," cried Pitou, "but for me father
Billot would have had but a bad time of it."

" Well, then, see you now. Billot, there are many men

432 TAKING THE BASTILE.

wlio would act as you have clone, when they feel that they
liave some one to assist them near them, and who, on the
contrary, if ahandoned to bad examples, become wicked,
then ferocious — then, when the evil is done, why, 'tie
done."

" But, in short," observed Billot, objectingly, *' admit-
ting that Mr. Pitt, or, rather, his money, had something
to do with the death of Flesselle, of Foulon, and of Ber-
thier, what would he gain by it ?"

Gilbert began to laugh with that inaudible laugh which
astonishes the simple, but which makes the thinking
shudder.

'' What would he gain by it ? " he exclaimed, " canyon
ask that ? "

''Yes, I do ask it."

"I will tell you. It is this: you were much pleased
with the revolution, were you not — you who walked in
blood to take the Bastile ? "

'•' Yes, I was pleased with it."

" Well, you now like it less — well ! now you regret
Villers-Cotterets, yonr farm, the quietude of your plain,
the shades of your great forests.'"

" Frigida tem^e," murmured Pitou.

" Oh, yes, you are right," sighed Billot.

" Well, then, you, father Billot, you, a farmer, you, the
proprietor of hind, you, a cliild of the Isle of France, and
consequently a Frenchman of the olden time, you represent
the third order, you belong to that which is called the
majority. Well, then, you are disgusted."

*' I acknowledge it."

" Then the majority will become disgusted as you are."

"And what then ?"

" And you will one day open your arms to the soldiers
of the Duke of Brunswick or of Mr. Pitt, who will come
to you in the name of those two liberators of France to
restore wholesome doctrine."

" Never ! "

"Pshaw ! wait a little."

" Flesselles, Bcrthier, and Foulon were at bottom ras-
cals," observed Pitou.

" Assuredly, as Monsieur de Sartines and Monsieur de
Maurepas were villains, as Monsieur d'Argenson and Mon-
sieur de PhiJippeaux were before theiu, as Monsieur J^aw

«k

TAKING THE BASTILE. 433

was, as the Le Blanc, the De Paris, the Duvernays were
villains, as Foquet was, as Mazarin was also, as Lamblauq,
as Enguerraud de Marigny were villains, as Monsieur de
Brienne js toward Monsieur de Oalonne, as Monsieur de
Calonne is toward Monsieur de Necker, as Monsieur de
Necker will be to the administration which we shall have
in two years."

"Oh! oh! doctor," murmured Billot, "Monsieur
Necker a villain — never ! "

"As you will be, my good Billot, a villain in the eyes
of little Pitou here, in case one of Mr. Pitt's agents should
teach him certain theories, backed by the intluence of a
pint of brandy and ten livres per day for getting up dis-
turbances. This word villain, do you see, Billot, is the
word by which, in revolutions, we designate the man who
thinks differently from us ; we are all destined to bear that
name more or less ; some will bear it so far that their
countrymen will inscribe it on their tombs, others so
mucli further that posterity will ratify the epithet. This,
my dear Billot, is what I see and which you do not see.
Billot, Billot ! people of real worth must therefore not
withdraw."

" Bah ! " cried Billot, " even were honest people to
withdraw, the revolution would still run its course ; it is
in full motion."

Another smile rose to the lips of Gilbert.

"Great child!" cried he, "who would abandon the
handle of the plow, unyoke the horses from it, and then
say : ' Good ! the plow has no need of me, the ])low will
trace its furrow by itself.' But, my friends, who was it
undertook the revolution ? Honest people, were they
not?"

" France flatters herself that it is so. It appears to me
that Lafayette is an honest man, it appears to me that
Bailly is an honest man, it appears to me that Monsieur
Necker is an honest man, it appears to me that Monsieur
Elie, Monsieur Hullin, and Monsieur Maillard, who fought
side by side with me, are honest people, it appears to me
that you yourself "

" Well, Billot, if honest people, if you, if I, if Mail-
lard, if Hullin, if Elie, if Necker, if Bailly, if Lafayette
should witlulraw, who would carry on the work ? Why,
those wretches, those assassins, those villains whom I

19— Dl-mas— YOL. IX.

434 TAKING THE BASTILE.

have pointed out to you — the agents, the agents of Mr.
Pitt ! "

" Try to answer that, father Billot," said Pitou, con-
vinced of the justice of the doctor's argument.

" Well, then," replied Billot, " we will arm ourseWes,
and shoot these villains down as if they were dogs."

'* Wait a moment. Who will arm themselves ?"

"Everybody."

" Billot, Billot ! remember one thing, my good friend,
and it is this, that what we are doing at this moment is
called — what do you call what we are now doing, Billot ?"

" Talking politics, Monsieur Gilbert."

*' Well, in politics there is no longer any absolute crime ;
one is a villain or an honest man, as we favor or thwart
the interests of the man who judges us. Those whom you
call villains will always give some specious reasons for
their crimes ; and to many honest people, who may have
had a direct or an indirect interest in the commission of
these crimes, these very villains will appear honest men
also. From the moment that we reach that point, Billot,
we must beware. There will then be men to hold the
plow-handle. It will move onward. Billot — it will move
onward, and without us."

" It is frightful," said the farmer, " but if it moves on-
ward without us, where will it stop ?"

" God only knows," exclaimed Gilbert ; " as to myself, I
know not."

" Well, then, if you do not know, you who are a learned
man. Monsieur Gilbert, I, who am an ignoramus, cannot
be expected to know anything of the matter. I augur
from it "

'' Well, what do you augur from it ? Let us hear."

'' I augur from it that what we had better do — I mean
Pitou and myself — is to return to the farm. We will
again take to the plow — the real plow — that of iron and
wood, with which we turn up the earth, and not the one
of flesh and blood, called the Frencli people, and which is
as restive as a vicious horse. We will make our corn grow
instead of shedding blood, and shall live free, joyous and
happy as lords in our own domain. Come witli us. come
with us. Monsieur Gilbert. The deuce I I like to know
where I am going."

**One moment, my stout-hearted friend," cried Gilbert.

TAKING THE BASTILE. ' 435

'* No, i know not whither I am going. I have told you
80, and I repeat it to you ; however, 1 still go on, and I
will continue still to do so. My duty is traced out tome ;
my life belongs to God, but my works are the debt which
I shall pay to my country. If my conscience says to me,
*Go on, Gilbert, you are in the right road — go on,' that is
all that I require. If I am mistaken, men will punish
me — but God will absolve me."

" But sometimes men punish those who are not mis-
taken. You said so yourself just now."

" And I say it again. It matters not, I persist. Billot ;
be it an error or not, I shall go on. To guarantee that
the events will not prove my inability, God forbid that I
should pretend to do so. But before all. Billot, the Lord
has said, * Peace be to the man of good intentions.'
Therefore be one of those to whom God has promised
peace. Look at Monsieur de Lafayette, in America as
well as France — this is the third white charger he has
worn out, without counting those he will wear out in
future. Look at Monsieur de Bailly, who wears out his
lungs. Look at the king, who wears out his popularity.
Come, come. Billot, let us not be egotistical. Let us
also wear ourselves out a little. Remain with me. Billot.'*

"■ Bnt to do what, if we do not prevent evil being
done ? "

" Billot, remember never to repeat those words ; for I
should esteem you less. You have been trampled under
foot, you have received hard fisticuffs, hard knocks from
the butt-ends of muskets, and even from bayonets when
you wished to save Foulon and Berthier."

**Ycs, and even a great many," replied the farmer,
passing his hand over his still painful body.

** And as to me," said Pitou, " I had one eve almost put
out."

'' And all that for nothing," added Billot.

"Well, my children, if instead of their being only ten,
fifteen, twenty of your courage, there had been a hundred,
two hundred, three hundred, you would have saved the un-
happy man from the frightful death wliich was inflicted
on liim ; you would have spared the nation the blot which
has sullied it. And that is the reason wliy, instead of re-
turning to the country, which is tolerably tranquil— that
is why. Billot, I exact as fi.r as I can exact anything of

436 TAKING THE BASTILE.

yon, my friend, that you should remain at Paris — that I
may have always near nie a vigorous arm, an upright heart ;
that I might test my mind and my works on the faithful
touch-stone of your good sense and your pure patriotism ;
and, in fine, that we might strew around us, not gold — for
that we have not — hut our love of country and of the
public welfare, in which you would be my agent with a
multitude of misled, unfortunate men — my staff, should
my feet slip — my staff, should I have occasion to strike
a blow."

** A blind man's dog," said Billot, with sublime sim-
plicity.

** Precisely," said Gilbert, in the same tone.

** Well," said Billot, ** I accept your proposal. I will be
whatever you may please to make me."

** I know that you are abandoning everything — fortune,
wife, child, and happiness. Billot. But you may be
tranquil ; it will not be for long."

" And I," said Pitou, " what am I to do ?"

"You?" said Gilbert, looking at the ingenuous and
hardy youth, who boasted not much of his intelligence ;
"you, you will return to the farm, to console Billot's
family, and explain to them the holy mission he has
undertaken."

"Instantly!" cried Pitou, trembling with joy at the
idea of returning to Catherine.

" Billot," said Gilbert, "give him your instructions."

" They are as follows," said Billot.

" I am all attention."

" Catherine is appointed by me as mistress of the house.
Do you understand ? "

"And Madame Billot?" exclaimed Pitou, somewhat
surprised at this slight offered to the mother, to the ad-
vancement of the daughter.

" Pitou,'' said Gilbert, who had at once cauglit the idea
of Billot, from seeing a slight blusli suffuse the face of
the honest farmer, " remember the Arabian proverb, * to
hear is to obey.' "

Pitou blushed in his turn. He had almost understood
and felt the indiscretion of which lie had boon guilty.

" Catherine has all the judgment of the family," added
Billot, unaffectedly, in order to explain his idea.

Gilbert bowed in token of assent.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 437

•' Is that all ? " inquired the youth.

" All that I have to say," replied Billot.

'* But not as regards me," said Gilbert. ^ *f

"I am listening," observed Pitou, well disposed to at-
tend to the Arabian proverb cited by Gilbert.

" You will go with a letter I shall give you to the Col-
lege Louis le Grand," added Gilbert. " You will deliver
that letter to the Abbe Berardier ; he will intrust Sebastian
to you, and you will bring him here. After I have em-
braced him, you will take him to Villers-Cotterets, where
you will place him in the hands of the Abbe Fortier,
that he may not altogether lose his time. On Sundays
and Thursdays he will go out with you. Make him walk
in the meadows and in the woods. It will be more con-
ducible to my tranquillity and his health that he should
be in the country yonder than here."

" I have understood you perfectly," said Pitou, delighted
to be thus restored to the friend of his childhood, and to
the vague aspirations of a sentiment somewhat more adult,
which had been awakened within him by the magic name
of Catherine.

He rose and took leave of Gilbert, who smiled — and of
Billot, who was dreaming.

Then he set off, running at full speed, to fetch Sebastian
Gilbert, his foster-brother, from the college.

*'And now we," said Gilbert to Billot, ''we must set
to work."

CHAPTER XV.

A DEGREE of calmness had succeeded at Versailles to
the terrible moral and political agitations which we have
placed before the eyes of our readers.

The king breathed again, and although lie could not
help reflecting on the suffering liis Bourbon pride had en-
dured during liis journey to Paris, he consoled himself
with the idea of his reconquered popularity.

During this time M. de Necker was organizing, and by
degrees losing his.

As to the nobility, they were beginning to prepare their
defection or their resistance.

The people were watching and waiting.

438 TAKING THE BASTILE.

D.uring this time the queen, tlirown buck, as it were,
oil i^e resources of lier own mind, assured that she was
tli^bject of many hatreds, shut herself up closely, almost
concealed herself ; for she also knew that although tlie
object of hatred to many, she was at the same time the
object of many hopes.

Since the journey of the king to Paris, she had scarcely
caught a glimpse of Gilbert.

Once, however, he had presented himself to her in the
vestibule which led to the king's apartments.

And there, as he had bowed to her very humbly and re-
spectfully, she was the first to begin a conversation with
him.

" Good-day, sir," said she to him ; ''are you going to
the king?"

And then she added, with a smile, in which there was a
slight tinge of irony :

" Is it as counselor, or as physician ?"

" It is as his physician, madame," replied Gilbert. " I
have to-day an appointed service."

She made a sign to Gilbert to follow her. The doctor
obeyed.

They both of them went into a small sitting-room, which
led to the king's bedroom.

''"Well, sir," said she, " you see that you were deceiving
me when you assured me the other day, with regard to
the journey to Paris, that the king was incurring no
danger."

" Wlio, I, madame ?" cried Gilbert, astonished.

** Undoubtedly ; was not the king fired at ?"

" Who has said that, madame ? "

"Everybody, sir; and, above all, those who saw the
poor woman fall almost beneath the wheels of the king's
carriage, Wiio says that ? AVhy, Monsieur de Beauvau
and Monsieur d'Estaing, who saw your coat torn and your
frill perforated by the ball."

"Madame !"

" The ball which thus grazed you, sir, that might have
killed the king, as it killed that unfortunate woman ! for,
in short, it was neither you nor that poor woman that the
murderers wished to kill."

" I do not believe in such a crime," replied the doctor,
hesitating.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 439

*'Be it so ; but I believe in it, sir/' rejoined the queen,
fixing her eyes on Gilbert.

" At all events, if there was intentional crime, it oifght
not to be imputed to the people."

" Ah ! " she exclaimed. " To whom, then, must it be
attributed ? Speak."

"Madame," continued Gilbert, shaking his head, "for
some time past I have been watching and studying the
people. Well, then, the people, when they assassinate in
revolutionary times, the people kill with their hands ;
they are then like the furious tiger, the irritated lion.
The tiger and the lion use no intermediary agent between
their fury and their victim ; they kill for killing's sake ;
they spill blood to spill it ; they like to dye their teeth, to
steep their claws in it."

" Witness Fonlon and Berthier, you would say. But
was not Flesselles killed by a shot from a pistol ? I was
so told, at least ; but after all," continued the queen, in a
tone of irony, " perhaps it was not true ; we crowned
heads are so surrounded by flatterers."

Gilbert, in his turn, looked intently at the queen.

"Oh I as to him," said he, "you do not believe more
than I do, madame, that it was the people who killed him.
There were people who Avere interested in bringing about
his death."

The queen reflected.

" In fact," she replied, " that may be possible."

" Then," said Gilbert, bowing, as if to ask the queen if
she had anything more to say to him.

" I understand, sir," said the queen, gently, stopping
the doctor with an almost friendly gesture ; " however
that may be, let me tell you that you will never save the
king's life so effectually by your medical skill, as you did
three days ago with your own breast."

Gilbert bowed a second time.

But as he saw that the queen remained, he remained
also.

" I ought to have seen you again, sir," said the queen,
alter a momentary repose.

" Your majesty had no further need of me," said Gil-
bert.
1 " You are modest."

*'* I wish I were not so, madame."

440 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' And why ? "

*•■ Because, being less modest, I should be less timid, and
consequently better able to serve my friends or to frustrate
enemies."

" Why do you make that distinction ? You say, my
friends, but do not say my enemies."

" Because, madame, I have no enemies ; or, rather, be-
cause I will not, for my part, at least, admit that I have
any."

The queen looked at him with surprise.

" I mean to say," continued Gilbert, " that those only
are my enemies who hate me, but that I, on my side, hate
no one."

" Because ?"

'' Because I no longer love any one, madame."

''Are you ambitious. Monsieur Gilbert ?"

** At one time I hoped to become so, madame."

" Aud "

" And that passion proved abortive, as did every other."

"There is one, however, that still remains in it," said
the queen, with a slight shade of artful irony.

*' In my heart ? And what passion is that, good Heav-
en ? "

'^ Your — patriotism."

Gilbert bowed.

" Oh, that is true," said he. " I adore my country,
and for it I would make every sacrifice."

"Alas I" said the queen, with undefinable melancholy,
"there was a time when a good Frenchman would not
have expressed that thought in the terms you now have
used.';

"What docs the queen mean to say ?" respectfully in-
quired Gilbert.

" I mean to say, sir, that in the times of which I speak
it was impossible for a Frenchman to love his country,
without, at the same time, loving his queen and king.''

Gilbert blushed : lie bov/ed, and felt within his heart
one of those electric shocks which, in her seducing in-
timacies, the queen produced on those who approached her.

" You do not answer me, sir," she said.

"Madame!" cried Gilbert, "I may venture to boast
that no one loves the monarchy more ardently than my-
eelf."

TAKING THE BASTIIjE. * 441

" Are we living in times, sir, when it is snflQcient to say
this ? and would it not be better to prove it by our acts ?"

" But, madame/' said Gilbert, with surprise, " I beg
your majesty to believe that all the king or queen might
command "

" You would do — is it not so ? "

*' Assuredly, madame."

** In doing which, sir," said the queen, resuming, in
spite of herself, a slight degree of her accustomed haugh-
tiness, "you would only be fulfilling a duty."

" Madame "

" God, who has given omnipotence to kings," continued
Marie Antoinette, "has released them from the obligation
of being grateful to those who merely fulfil a duty."

"Alas! alas! Madame," rejoined Gilbert, "the time
is approaching when your servants will deserve more than
your gratitude, if they will only fulfil their duty."

" What is it you say, sir ? "

" I mean to say, madame, that in these days of disorder
and demolition, you will in vain seek for friends where you
have been accustomed to find servants. Pray, pray to Gfod,
madame, to send you other servants, other supporters,
other friends than those you have."

" Do you know any such ? "

" Yes, madame."

" Then point them out to me."

" See now, madame ; I, who now speak to you, I was
your enemy but yesterday."

" My enemy ! and why were you so ? "

" Because you ordered that I should be imprisoned."

" And to-day ? "

"To-day, madame," replied Gilbert, bowing, "I am
your servant"

" And your object ?"

" Madame "

" The object for which you have become my servant .'*
It is not in your nature, sir, to change your opinion, your
belief, your affections so suddenly. You are a man,
Monsieur Gilbert, whose remembrances are deeply planted ;
you know how to perpetuate your vengeance. Come, now,
tell me what was the motive of this change ?"

"Madame, you reproached me but now with my loving
my country too passionately."

442 TAKING THE BASTILE.

"No one can ever love it too much, sir ; the o'lly ques-
tion is to know how we love it. For myself, I love my
conntry." Gilbert smiled. "Oh! no false interpretation,
sir ; my country is France. A German by blood, I am a
Frencli woman in my heart. I love France ; but it is
through the king, I love France from the respect due to
God, who has given us the throne. And now to vou,
sir."

"To me, madame?"

" Yes, it is now for you to speak. I understand yon, do
I not ? To you it is quite another matter. You love
France merely and simply for France herself."

"Madame," replied Gilbert, bowing, "I should fail in
respect to your majesty, should I fail in frankness."

"Oh!" exclaimed the queen, "frightful, frightful
period ! when all people who pretend to be people of worth
isolate two things which have never been separated from
each other ; two principles which have always gone hand
in hand — France and her king. But have you not a trag-
edy of one of your poets, in which it is asked of a queen
who has been abandoned by all, * What now remains to
you ? ' and to which she replies, ' Myself ! ' Well, then,
like Medea, I also will say, * Myself I " and we shall see."

And she angrily left the room, leaving Gilbert in amaze-
ment.

She had just raised to his view, by the breath of her
anger, one corner of the veil behind which she was com-
bining the whole work of the counter-revolution.

''Come, come," said Gilbert to himself, as he went into
the king's room, " the queen is meditating some project."

" Really," said the queen to herself, as she was return-
ing to her apartment, " decidedly, there is nothing to be
made of this man. He has energy, but he has nodevoted-
ness."

Poor princess ! with whom the word devotedness is
synonymous with civility

CHAPTEK XVI.

Gilbert returned to M. Necker after his professional
visit to the king, whom ho had found as tranquil as the
queen was agitated.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 443

The king was composing speeches, he was examining
accounts, he was meditating reforms in the laws.

This well-intentioned man, whose look was so kind,
whose soul was so upright, whose heart erred only from
prejudices inherent to the royal condition, this man was
absolutely bent on producing trivial reforms in exchange
for the serious inroads made on his prerogative. He was
obstinately bent on examining the distant horizon with his
short-sighted eyes, when an abyss was yawning beneath his
feet. This man inspired Gilbert with a feeling of pro-
found pity. As to the queen, it was not thus, and in spite
of his impassibility, Gilbert felt that she was one of
those women whom it was necessary to love passionately,
or to hate even to the death.

When she had returned to her own apartment, Marie
Antoinette felt as if an immense burden were weighing on
her heart.

And, in fact, wliether as a woman or as a queen, she
felt that there was notliing stable around her — nothing
which could aid her in supporting even a portion of the
burden which was crushing her.

On whichever side she turned her eyes, she saw only
hesitation and doubt.

The courtiers anxious with regard to their fortunes, and
realizing what they could.

Eelations and friends thinking of emigrating.

The proudest woman of them all, Andree, gradually be-
coming estranged from her in heart and mind.

The noblest and the most beloved of all tlie men who
surrounded her, Charny, wounded by her caprice and a
prey to doubt.

This position of alTairs caused her great anxiety ; she,
who was instinct and sagacity personified.

How could this man, who was purity itself, how could
this heart, without alloy, have changed so suddenly ?

"No, he has not yet changed," said the queen to herself,
sighing deeply, " but he is about to change."

He is about to change ! Frightful conviction to the
woman who loves passionately, and insupportable to the
woman who loves with pride.

Now, the queen loved Charny both passionately and
proudly. The queen was suffering, therefore, from two
wounds.

444 TAKING THE BASTILE.

And yet, at that very time, at tlie time when she felt
the consciousiiesd of having acted wrongly, of the evil she
had comiiiitted, she had still time to remedy it.

But the mind of that crowned woman was not a flexible
mind. She could not descend to waver even though she
knew she was acting unjustly ; had it been toward an in-
different person, she might have, or would have, wished
to have shown some greatness of soul, and then she might
perhaps have asked for forgiveness.

But to the man whom she had honored with an affec-
tion at once so tender and so pure, to him whom she had
deigned to admit to a participation in her most secret
thoughts, the queen considered it would be degrading to
make the slightest concession.

The misfortune of queens who condescend to love a sub-
ject is to love them always as queens, but never as women.

Marie Antoinette estimated herself at so high a price,
that she thought there was nothing human which could
compensate her love, not even blood, not even tears.

From the moment she felt that she was jealous of An-
dree, she had begun to dwindle morally.

The consequence of this inferiority was her caprice.

The consequence of her caprice was anger.

The consequence of her anger was evil thoughts, which
always bring in tlieir train evil actions.

Charny did not enter into any of the considerations
which we have just stated ; but he was a man, and he
had comprehended that Marie Antoinette was jealous of
his wife.

Of his wife, toward whom he had never shown any affec-
tion.

There is nothing which so much revolts an upright heart,
one altogether incapable of treachery, as to see that it is
believed capable of treachery.

There is nothing wliich so much conduces to direct the
attention toward a person as the jealousy with which that
person is honored.

Above all, if that jealousy be really unjust.

Then the person who is suspected reflects.

lie alternately considers the jealous heart and the person
who has caused that jealousy.

The greater the soul of the jealous person, the greater
is the danger into which it throws itself.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 445

In fact, how is it possible to suppose that a person of
expansive heart, of superior iutelligence, of legitimate
pride, could become agitated for a mere nothiug, or for
anything of trifling value. AVhy should a woman who is
beautiful be jealous ? Why should a woman of superior
intellect be jealous ? Why should a woman of the high-
est rank and power be jealous ? How could it be supposed
that, possessing all these advantages, a woman could be
jealous for a mere nothing, or for anything of trifling value?

Charny knew that Mile. Andree de Taverney had been
long a friend of the queen — that in former days she had
been well treated, always preferred by her. How, then,
was it that she no longer loved her ? How was it that
Marie Antoinette had all at once become jealous of her ?

She must, therefore, have discerned some secret and
mysterious beauty which M. de Charny had not discovered,
and undoubtedly because he had not sought for it.

She had, tiierefore, felt that Charny might have per-'
ceived something in this woman, and that she, the queen,
had lost in the comparison.

Or, again, she might have believed that she perceived
that Charny loved her less, without there being any ex-
traneous cause for this diminution of his passion.

There is nothing more fatal to the jealous than the
knowledge which they thus give to others of the tempera-
ture of that heart which they wish to keep in the most
fervid degree of heat.

How often does it happen that the loved object is in-
formed of his coldness — of a coldness which he had begun
to experience without being able to account for it.

And when he discovers that, when he feels the truth of
the reproach, say, madame, how numy times have you
found that he has allowed your chains to be again thrown
round him, that his languishing flame has been rekindled ?

Oh ! unskilfulness of lovers ! It is, however, true that
where much art or adroitness is exercised, there scarcely
ever exists a great degree of love.

Marie Antoinette had, therefore, herself taught Charny
to believe, by her own anger and injustice, that his heart
was less full of love than formerly.

And as soon as ho knew this, he endeavored to account
for it, and, looking around him, very naturally discovered
the cause of the queen's jealousy.

443 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Audree, the poor, abandoned Audree, who had been a
bride, but had never been a wife '

He pitied Andree.

The scene of the retnrn from Paris had unveiled the
secret of this deep-rooted jealousy, so carefully concealed
from all eyes.

The queen also clearly saw that all was discovered, and
as she would not bend before Charny, she employed an-
other method, which, in her opinion, would lead to the
same end.

She began to treat Andree with great kindness.

She admitted her to all her excursions, to all her even-
ing parties ; she overwhelmed her with caresses ; she made
lier the envy of all tlie other ladies of the court.

And Andree allowed her to do all this, with some aston-
ishment, but without feeling grateful for it. She had for
years said to herself thr.t she belonged to the queen, that
the queen could do as she pleased with lier, and therefore
was it that she submitted to it.

But, on the other side, as it was necessary that the
irritation of the woman should be vented on some one, the
queen began to severely ill-treat Charny. She no longer
spoke to him ; she was absolutely liarsh to him ; she
affected to pass evenings, days, weeks, without observing
that he was present.

Only, when he was absent, the heart of the poor woman
swelled with anxiety ; her eyes wandered around eagerly,
seeking him, whom the moment they perceived, they were
instantly averted from.

Did she need the support of an arm, had she an order
to give, had she a smile to throw away, it was bestowed ou
the first comer.

IJut this first corner never failed to be a handsome and
distinguished man.

The queen imagined she was curing her own wound by
wounding Charny.

The latter suffered, but was silent. Not an angry or im-
patient gesture escaped him. lie was a man ])ossessing
groat self-command, and although suffering frightful tor-
ture, he remained, to appearance, perfectly impassible.

Then was seen a singular spectacle, a spectacle which
women alone can fiiriiish and fnjly comprehend.

Audree felt all the sufferings of her husband, and as

TAKING THE BASTILE. 447

Bhe loved him with that angelic love which never had con-
ceived a liope, she pitied liim, and allowed him to ^^erceive
she did so.

The result of this compassion was a sweet and tacit
reconciliation. She endeavored to console Charny with-
out allowing him to perceive that she comprehended the
need he had of consolation.

And all this was done with that delicacy which may be
called essentially feminine, seeing that Avomen alone are
capable of it.

Marie Antoinette, who had sought to divide in order to
reign, perceived that she had made a false move, and that
she was only drawing together two souls by the very
means which she had adopted to keep them separate.

Then the poor woman, during the silence and the soli-
tude of night, endured tlie most frightful paroxysms of
•despair, such as would make us wonder that God had
created beings of sufficient strength to support them.

And the queen would assuredly have succumbed to so
many ills but for the constant occupation given to her mind
by political events. No one complains of the hardness of
a bed when his limbs are exhausted by fatigue.

Such were the circumstances under which the queen
had been living since the return of the king to Versailles,
up to the day when she thought seriously of resuming the
absolute exercise of her power.

For in her pride she attributed to her decadency the
species of depreciation to which for some time the woman
had been subjected.

To her energetic mind, to think was to act. She,
therefore, commenced her combinations without losing a
moment.

Alas ! these combinations which she was then meditat-
ing were those which wrought out her perdition.

CHAPTER XVII.

Unfortunately, in the queen's opinion, all the facts
which had occurred were merely accidents, which a lirm
and active hand might remedy. It was only necessary to
concentrate her power.

The queen, seeing that the Parisians had so suddenly

448 TAKING THE BASTILE.

transformed tliemselves into soldiers, and appeared to wish
for war, resolved on sliowing them wliat real war M'as.

" Up to this time, they have only had to deal with tlie
Invalides, or with Swiss, but ill supported and wavering ;
we will show them M'liat it is to have oi)posed to them two
or three well-disciplined and royalist regiments.

" Perhaps there may be a regiment of tliis description,
which has already put to flight some of these rebellious
rioters, and has shed blood in the convulsions of civil war.
We will have the most celebrated of these regiments
ordered here. The Parisians will then understand that
their best policy will be to abstain from provocation."

This was after all the quarrels between the king and the
National Assembly with regard to the veto. The king,
during two months, had been struggling to recover some
tattered shreds of sovereignty ; he had, conjointly with
the administration and Mirabeau, endeavored to neutral-
ize the Republican outburst which was endeavoring to
efface royalty in France.

The queen had exhausted herself in this struggle, and
was exhausted above all from having seen the king suc-
cumb.

The king, in this contention, had lost all his power and
the remains of his popularity. The queen had gained an
additional name — a nickname.

One of tiiose words which were altogether foreign to the
ears of the people, and from that reason more pleasing to
the ears of the people ; a name Avhicli had not yet be-
come an insult, but which was soon to become the most
opprobrious of all ; a witty saying, which afterward was
changed into a sanguinary rallying cry.

In short, she was called Mme. Veto.

This name was destined to be borne in revolutionary
songs beyond the banks of the Rhine, to terrify in Ger-
many the subjects and the friends of those who, having
sent to France a German queen, had some right to be
astonished that she was insulted by the name of the
Autrichienne (the Austrian woman).

This name was destined in Paris to accompany, in the
insensate dancing-rings, on days of massacre, the last cries,
the hideous agonies of the victims.

Marie Antoinette was thoncoforth cnllod Mme. Veto,
until the day when she was to be called the Widow Capet.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 449

She had already changed her name three times. After
haviuff been called the Autrichienne, she was next called
Mme. Deficit.

After the contests in which the queen had endeavored
to interest her friends by the imminence of their own
danger, she had remarked that sixty thousand passports
had been applied for at the H6tel de Ville.

Sixty thousand of the principal families of Paris and of
France had gone off to rejoin in foreign countries the
friends and relatives of the queen.

A very striking example, and one which had forcibly
struck the queen.

And, therefore, from that moment she meditated a skil-
fully concerted flight ; a flight supported by armed force
should it be necessary ; a flight which had for its object
safety, after which the faithful who remained in France
might carry on the civil war — that is to say, chastise the
revolutionists.

The plan was not a bad one. It would assuredly have
succeeded ; but behind the queen the evil genius was also
watching.

Strange destiny ! that woman who inspired so many with
enthusiastic devotedness, could nowhere find discretion.

It was known at Paris that she wished to fly before she
had even persuaded herself to adopt the measure.

Marie Antoinette did not perceive that from the moment
her intention had become known her plan had become im-
practicable.

However, a regiment, celebrated for its royalist sym-
pathies, the Flanders regiment, arrived at Versailles by
forced marches.

This regiment had been demanded by the municipal
authorities at Versailles, who, tormented by the extraor-
dinary guards, and by the strict watch it was necessarry
to keep around the palace, incessantly threatened by fresh
demands for distributions of provisions, and successive dis-
turbances, stood in need of some other military force than
the National Guards and the militia.

The palace had already quite enough to do to defend
itself.

The Flanders regiment arrived, as we have said, and
that it should at once assume the importance with which
it was intended to be invested, it was necessary that a

450 TAKING THE BASTILE.

brilliant reception shonld be given to it, that it might at
once attract the attention of the people.

The Count d'Estaiug assembled all the officers of the
National Guard and all those of the corps then present at
Versailles, and went out to meet it.

The regiment made a solemn entry into Versailles, with
its park of artillery and its ammunition wagons.

Around this group, which then became central, assembled
a crowd of young gentlemen who did not belong to any
regular corps.

They adopted a sort of uniform by which they could
recognize one another, and were joined by all the officers
unattached, all the chevaliers of the Order of St. Louis,
whom danger or interest had brought to Versailles.

After this they made excursions to Paris, where were seen
these new enemies, fresh, insolent, and puffed up with a
secret which was sure to escape them as soon as an oppor-
tunity should present itself.

At that moment the king might have escaped. Ho
would have been supported, protected on his journey, and
Paris, perhaps, still ignorant and ill prepared, would have
allowed his departure.

But the evil genius of the Autrichienne was still watch-
ing.

Liege revolted against the emperor, and the occupation
which the revolt gave to Austria prevented her from think-
ing of the Queen of France.

The latter, on her side, thought that in delicacy she
must abstain from asking any aid at such a moment.

Then events, to which impulsion had been given, con-
tinued to rush on with lightning-like rapidity.

After the ovation in honor of the Flanders regiment,
the body-guard decided on giving a dinner to the officers
of that regiment.

This banquet, this festival, was fixed for the first of
October. Every important personage in the town was
invited to it.

And what, then, was the object of this banquet ? To
fraternize with the Flanders soldiers. And why should
not soldiers fraternize with one another, since the districts
and provinces fraternized ?

"Wms it forbidden by the couatitution that gentlemen
should fraternize ?

TAKING THE BASTILE. ' 451

The king was still the master of his regiments, and he
alone commanded them ; the palace of Versailles was his
own property ; he alone had a right to receive into it
whomsoever he might please.

And why should he not receive brave soldiers and
worthy gentlemen within it, men who had jnst come from
Douai, where they had behaved well ?

Nothing could be more natural. No one thought of
being astonished, and still less of being alarmed at it.

This repast, to be taken thus in union, was about to ce-
ment the affection which ought always to subsist between
all the corps of the French army destined to defend both
liberty and royalty.

Besides, did the king even know what had been agreed
upon ?

Since the events of Paris, the king, free, thanks to his
Concessions, no longer occupied himself with public mat-
ters ; the burden of affairs had been taken from him. He
desired to reign no longer, since others reigned for him,
but he did not think that he ought to weary himself by
doing nothing all day long.

The king, while the gentlemen of the National Assembly
were fraudulently cutting and contriving — the king amused
himself by hunting.

The king, while the nobility and the reverend bishops
were abandoning, on the 4th of August, their dove-cots
and their feudal rights, their pigeons and their parch-
ments— the king, who was very willing, as all the world
were doing it, to make some sacrifices, abolished all his
hunting train, but he did not cease to hunt on that ac-
count.

Now, the king, who, while the officers of the Flanders
regiment were to be dining with his bodv-guards — the
king would be enjoying the pleasures of the chase, as he
did every day ; the tables would be cleared away before
his return.

This would even inconvenience him so little, and he
would so little inconvenience tlie banquet in question, that
it was resolved to ask the queen to allow the festival to be
given within the walls of the palace itself.

Tlie queen saw no reason for refusing this hospitality to
the Flanders soldiers.

She gave them the theater for the banquet-room, ia

452 TAKING THE BASTILE.

which she allowed them for that day to construct a floor-
iug evf^u with the stage, that there might be ample space
for the guards and their guests.

When a queen wishes to be hospitable to French gentle-
men, she is so to the full extent of her power. This was
their dining-room, but they also required a drawing-room ;
the queen allowed them to use the Saloon of Hercules.

On a Thursday, the 1st of October, as we have already
said, this feast was given, and wliicli was destined to fill
so fatal a page in the liistory of the blindness and improv-
idence of royalty.

The king had gone out hunting.

The queen was shut up in her own apartments, sorrow-
ful and pensive, and determined not to hear either the
ringing of the glasses when the officers gave their toasts,
or the sound of their enthusiastic cheers.

Her son was in her arms ; Andree was with her ; two
women were at work in one corner of the room ; those
were the only persons with her.

The brilliantly attired officers, with their waving plumes
and briglit gleaming arms, by degrees entered the palace ;
their horses neighed before the grated gates of the royal
stables, their clarions sounded as they approaclied, and
the bands of the Flanders regiment and the guards filled
the air with harmonious sounds.

Outside the gilded railings of the courtyard of the
palace was a pale, inquisitive crowd, gloomily anxious,
watching, analyzing, and commenting on the joyous fes-
tival within, and tlie airs played by the military bauds.

In gusts, like the squalls of a distant tempest, there ex-
haled from the open portals of tlie palace the sounds of
merriment with the odors of the savory viands.

It was very imprudent to allow this crowd of starving
people to inhale the odors of tlie good cheer and wine — to
allow tliese morose people to hear these sounds of jovial
festivity.

The festival was, however, continued without anything
disturbing its conviviality ; for a time, all was conducted
with sobriety and order ; the officers, full of respect for
the uniform they Avorc, at first conversed in an undertone,
and drank moderately ; during the first half-hour, the
program which had been agreed upon was strictly adhered
to.

TAKING THE BASTILE. ' 453

The second course was pnt on the table.

M. de Lusignan, tlie colonel of the lianders regiment,
rose and proposed four toasts. They were to the health of
the king, the queen, the dauphin, and tlie royal family.

Four shouts of applause reechoed from the vaulted
roofs, and struck the ears of the sorrowful spectators out-
side the palace.

An officer rose — perhaps he was a man of judgment and
of courage — a man of sound good sense, who foresaw the
issue of all this — a man sincerely attached to that royal
family to whom he had just drunk so noisily.

This man comprehended that among these toasts there
was one which was omitted, which probably might pre-
sent itself to their attention.

He, therefore, proposed this toast, ''The Nation.'^

A long murmur preceded a long shout.
■ ''No, no," cried every person j^resent, except the pro-
poser of the toast.

And the toast to the nation was contemptuously rejected.

The festival had just assumed its real character, the tor-
rent had formed its real course.

It has been said, and it is still repeated, that the person
who proposed this toast was but an instigator of an op-
posing manifestation.

However this might be, his words produced an unto-
ward effect. To forget the nation might have been but a
trifle, but to insult it was too much. It avenged itself.

As from this moment the ice was broken, as to the re-
served silence succeeded boisterous cries and excited con-
versation, discipline became but a chimerical modesty ; the
dragoons, the grenadiers, the "hundred Swiss "were sent
for, and even all the private soldiers in the palace.

The wine was pushed round quickly ; ten times were
the glasses filled ; when the dessert was brought in, it was
absolutely pillaged. Intoxication became general, the
soldiers forgot that they were drinking with their officers ;
it was, in reality, a fraternal festival.

From all parts were heard shouts of " Long live the
king ! long live the queen ! " So many flowers, so many
lights, illuminating the brilliantly gilded arches, so many
loyal lightnings darting from the eyes of these brave men,
was a spectacle which would have been grateful to the
^eyes of the queen and reassuring to those of the king.

454 TAKIMG THE BASTILE.

This so unfortunate king, this so sorrowful queen, wliy
were they not present iit such a festival ?

" Some officious partisans withdrew from the dining-
room, and ran to Marie Antoinette's apartments, and re-
lated, exaggerated, to her what they had seen.

Then the sorrowing eyes of the queen become reani-
mated, and she rises from her cliair. There is, then, some
loyalty left, some affection in French hearts !

There is, therefore, something still to hope.

At the doors were soon assembled a crowd of courtiers ;
they entreat, they conjure the queen to pay a visit merely
to show herself for a moment in the festive hall, where
two thousand enthusiastic subjects are consecrating, by
their hurrahs, the religion of monarchical principles.

" The king is absent," she sorrowfully replied. '* 1 can-
not go there alone."

'•' But with Monseigneur the Dauphin," said some im-
prudent persons who still insisted on her going.

" Madame ! madame I " whispered a voice into her ear,
*' remain here, I conjure you to remain."

The queen turned round — it was the Count do Charny.

" What ! " cried she, " are you not below with all those
gentlemen ? "

" I was there, madame, but have returned. The ex-
citement down yonder is so great that it may prejudice
your majesty's interests more than may be imagined."

Marie Antoinette was in one of her sullen, her capri-
cious days, with regard to Charny. It pleased her on that
day to do precisely the contrary of everything that might
have been agreeable to the count.

She darted at him a disdainful look, and was about to
address some disobliging words to him, when, preventing
her by a successful gesture :

" t or mercy's sake, madame," added he, "at least, await
the king's advice."

He thought by this to gain time.

" The king ! the king ! " exclaimed several voices ;
*'the king has just returned from hunting."

And this was the fact.

Mario Antoinette rises and runs to meet the king, who,
still booted and covered with dust, entered the room.

" Sire," crie<l she, "there is below a spectacle worthy
of the King of France. Come with me — come with me 1 ^

TAKING THE BASTILE. • 455

And she took the king's arm and dragged him away
without looking at Charny, Avho dug his nails with anger
into his breast.

Leading her son with her left hand, she descended the
staircase. A whole flood of courtiers preceded or urged
her on. She reaches the door of the theater at the mo-
ment when, for the twentieth time, the glasses were being
emptied with shouts of '' Long live the king ! long live
the queen ! "

CHAPTEK XYIIL

At the moment when the queen appeared with the king
and their son on the stage of the opera, an immense ac-
clamation, as sudden and as loud as the explosion of a
mine, was heard from the banqueting-tables and boxes.

The inebriated soldiers, the officers, delirious with wine
and enthusiasm, waving their hats and sabers above their
heads, shouted, ' ' Long live the king ! long live the queen !
long live the dauphin ! "

The bands immediately played, " Oh, Eichard ! oh, my
king ! "

The illusion of this air had become so apparent, it so
well expressed the thoughts of all present, it so faithfully
translated the meaning of this banquet, that all, as soon as
the air began, immediately sung the words.

The queen, in her enthusiasm, forgot that she was in
the midst of inebriated men ; the king, though surprised,
telt with his accustomed sound sense that it was no place
for him, and that it was going beyond his conscientious
feelings ; but weak and fluttered at once more finding a
popularity and zeal which he was no longer habituated to
meet from his people, he by degrees allowed himself to be
carried away by the general hilarity.

Charny, who, during the whole festival, had drunk
nothing but water, followed tlie king and queen ; he had
hoped that all would have terminated without their being
present, and then it would have been but of slight im-
portance ; they might have disavowed, have denied every-
thing ; but he turned pale at the thought that tlie presence
of the king and queen would become a historical fact.

But his terror was increased greatly when he saw his

456 TAKING THE BASTILE.

brother George approach the queen, ami, euconraged by
her smile, address some words to her.

He was not near enough to hear the words, but by his
gestures he could comprehend that he was making some
request.

To this request the queen made a sign of assent ; and
suddenly taking from her cap the cockade she wore upon
it, gave it to the young man.

Charny shuddered, stretched forth his arms, and uttered
a cry.

It was not even the white cockade, the French cockade,
whicli the queen presented to her imprudent knight ; it
was the black cockade, the Austrian cockade, the cockade
which was so hateful to French eyes.

What the queen then did was no longer a mere im])ru-
dence ; it was an act of absolute treason.

And yet all these poor fanatics whom God had doomed
to ruin were so insensate that when George Charny pre-
sented to them this black cockade, those who wore the
white cockade threw it from them, those who had the tri-
colored one trampled it beneath their feet.

And then the excitement became so great, that unless
they had wished to be stifled with tlieir kisses, or to trample
under foot those who threw themselves on their knees
before them, the august hosts of the Flanders regiment
felt obliged to retreat toward their apartments.

All this might have been considered as a sample of
French folly, which the French are always ready enough
to pardon, if these orgies had not gone beyond the point
of enthusiasm ; but they soon went much further.

Good royalists, when eulogizing the king, must neces-
sarily somewhat ill-treat the nation.

That nation, m wliose name so much vexation had been
offered to the king, that the bands had undoubtedly the
right to play ; " Pent on affliger ce qu'ou ainie ? " (" Can
we afflict those whom we love ? ")

It was while this air was being played, that the king,
the queen, and the dauphin withdrew.

Tliey had scarcely left the theater when, exciting each
other, the bouu conipajiions melanu)rphoscd the banquct-
ing-roora into a town taken by assault.

tJpon a signal given by ^I. Perseval, aiil-de-cami) to the
Count d'Estaing, the trumpets sounded a charge.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 457

A charge, aud against whom? Agaiust the absent enemy.

Against the people.

A charge ! music so euclianting to French ears that it
had the effect of transforming the stage of the opera-house
at Versailles into a battle-field, and the lovely ladies who
were gazing from the boxes at the brillant spectacle were
the enemy.

The cry " To the assault ! " was uttered by a hundred
voices, and the escalade of the boxes immediately com-
menced. It is true that the besiegers were in a humor
which inspired so little terror that the besieged held out
their hands to them.

The first who reached the balcony was a grenadier in
the Flanders regiment ; M. de Perseval tore a cross from
his own breast, and decorated the grenadier with it.

It is true that it was a Limbourg cross, one of those
crosses which are scarcely considered crosses.

And all this was done under the Austrian colors, with
loud vociferations against the national cockade.

Here and there some hollow and sinister sounds were
uttered.

But, drowned by the howling of the singers, by the
hurrahs of the besiegers, by the inspiring sounds of the
trumpets, these noises were borne with threatening import
to the ears of the people, who were, in the first place, as-
tonished, and then became indignant.

It was soon known outside the palace, in the square,
and afterward in the streets, that the black cockade had
been substituted for the white one, and that the tricolored
cockade had been trampled underfoot. It was also known
that a brave officer of the National Guard, who had, in
spite of threats, retained his tricolored cockade, had been
seriously wounded even in the king's apartments.

Then, it was vaguely rumored that one officer alone had
remained motionless, sorrowful, and standing at the en-
trance of that immense banqueting-room converted into a
circus, wherein all these madmen had been playing their
insensate pranks, and had looked on, listened to, and had
shown himself, loyal and intrepid soldier as he was, sub-
missive to the all-powerful will of the majority, taking
upon himself the faults of others, accepting the responsi-
bility of all the excesses committed by the army, repre-
sented on that fatal day by the officers of the Flanders

20— Dumas— YoL. IX.

458 TAKING THE BASTILE.

regiment ; but the name of tliis man, wise alone amid so
many madmen, was not even pronounced ; and had it been,
it would never have been believed that the Count de Charnj,
the queen's favorite, was the man who, although ready to
die for her, had suffered more painfully than any other
from the errors she had committed.

As to the queen, she had returned to her own apartments,
completely giddy from the magic of the scene.

She was soon assailed bv a throng of courtiers and flat-
terers.

"See," said they to her, ''what is the real feeling of
your troops ; judge from this whether the popular fury
for anarchical ideas, which has been so much spoken of,
could withstand the ferocious ardor of French soldiers for
monarchical ideas." And as all these words corresponded
with the secret desire of the queen, she allowing herself
to be led away by tliese chimeras, not perceiving that
Charny had remained at a distance from her.

By degrees, however, the noises ceased ; the slumber of
the mind extinguished all the ignes-fatui, the phantasma-
goria of intoxication. The king, besides, paid a visit to
the queen at the moment she was about to retire, and let
fall these words, replete with profound wisdom :

"^ We shall see to-morrow."

The imprudent man, by this saying, which to any other
person but to the one to wliom it was addressed, would
have been a warning and sage counsel, he had revivified
in the queen's mind feelings of provocation and resistance
which had almost subsided.

" In fact," murmured she, when the king had left her-
" this flame, which was confined to the palace this eve-
ning, will spread itself into Versailles during the night, and
to-morrow will produce a general conflagration throughout
France. All tliese soldiers, all these otticers who have this
evening given me such fervent pledges of their devotedness,
will be called traitors, rebels to the nation, murderers of
their country. They will call the chiefs of these aristo-
crats, the subalterns of the stipendiaries of Pitt and Co-
burg, satellites of the barbarous powers, of the savages of
the north.

" p]ach of these heads which has worn the black cockade
will be doomed to be fixed to the lamp-post on the Place
de Grcjve.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 459

<e

Each of those breasts from which so loyally escaped
those shouts of ' Long live the queeu ! ' will 011 the first
popular commotion be pierced with ignoble knives and
infamous pikes.

''And it is I, again — I, always I, who have been the
cause of all this. I shall have condemned to death all
these brave and faithful servants — I, the inviolable sover-
eign. They are hypocritically left unassailed when near
me, but when away from me will be insulted from hatred.

** Oh ! no ; rather than be ungrateful to such a degree
as that, toward my only, my last friends — rather than be
so cowardly and so heartless, I will take the fault upon
myself. It is for me that all this has been done ; upon
me let all their anger fall. We shall then see how far
their anger will be carried — we shall see up to which step
of my throne the impure tide will dare to ascend."

And to the queen, animated by these thoughts, which
drove sleep from her pillow, and on which she meditated
during the greater part of the night, the result of the
events of the next day was no longer doubtful.

The next day came, clouded over with gloomy regrets,
and ushered in by threatening murmurs.

On that day the National Guards, to whom the queen
had presented their colors, came to the palace with heads
cast down and averted eyes, to thank her majesty.

It was easy to divine, from the attitude of these men,
that they did not approve what had occurred ; but, on the
contrary, that they would have loudly disapproved it had
they dared.

They had formed part of the procession, and had gone
out to welcome the Flanders regiment ; they had received
invitations to the banquet, and had accepted them. Only,
being more citizens than soldiers, it was they who, dur-
ing tlie debauch, had uttered those disapproving groans
which had not been heeded.

These observations on the following day had become a
reproach, a blame.

When they came to the palace to thank the queen, they
were escorted by a great crowd.

And taking into consideration the serious nature of the
circumstances, the ceremony became an imposing one.

The parties on both sides wore about to discover with
whom they would have to deal.

- 460 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Oil their side, all those soldiers and officer who had so
comproinised themselves the evening before, were anxious
to ascertain how far they would be supported by the queen
in their imprudent demonstrations, and had placed them-
selves before that people whom they had scandalized aiui
iusulteil, that they )night hear the tirist ot!icial words which
should be uttered from the palace.

The weight of the whole counter-revolution was then
hanging suspended over the head of the queen.

It was, however, still within her power to have with-
drawn from this responsibility.

But she, proud as the })roudest of her race, with great
firmness cast her clear and penetrating gaze all around
her, whether friends or enemies, and addressing herself in
a sonorous voice to the officers of the National Guards :

'' Gentlemen," said she, '' I am much pleased at having
presented you with your colors. The nation and the army
ought to love the king as we love the nation and the
army. I was delighted with the events of yesterday."

Upon these words, which she emphasized in her tirmest
tone of voice, a murmur arose from the crowd, and loud
applause reechoed from the military ranks.

" We are supported," said the latter.

*' We are betrayed," said the former.

Thus, poor queen, that fatal evening of the 1st of Octo-
ber was not an accidental matter ! thus, unfortunate
wonuui, you do not regret the occurrences of yesterday —
you do not repent !

And, so far from repenting, you are delighted with
them !

Charny, who was in the center of a group, hoard, with
a sigh of extreme pain, this justification — nay, more than
that, this glorification of the orgies of the king's guards.

The queen, on turning away her eyes from the crowd,
met those of the count, and she fixed her looks on the
countenance of her lover, in order to ascertain the im-
pression her words had produced upon him.

" Am I not courageous ?" was the import of this look.

" Alas I madame, you are far more mad than courage-
ous," replied the gloomy countenance of the count.

TAKING THE BASTILB. 461

CHAPTER XIX

At Versailles, the court Avas talking heroically agaiust
the people.

At Paris, they were becoming knight-erraiits against
the court alone ; knight-errautry was running about the
streets.

These knights of the people were wandering about in
rags, their hands upon the hilt of a saber or the butt-end
of a pistol, questioning their empty pockets or their
hollow stomachs.

While at Versailles they drank too much, at Paris, alas!
they did not eat enough.

There was too much wine on the tablecloths at Ver-
sailles ; not sufficient flour in the bakers' shops at Paris.

Strange circumstances ! a melancholy bliTidness, which,
now that we are accustomed to the fall of thrones, will
excite a smile of pity from political men.

To make a counter-revolution, and provoke to a combat
people who are starving !

Alas ! will say History, compelled to become a material-
ist philosopher, no people ever figlit so desperately as
those who have not dined.

lb would, however, have been very easy to have given
bread to the people, and then, most assuredly, the bread
of Versailles would have appeared less bitter.

Bud the flour of Corbeil ceased to arrive. Corbeil is so
far from Versailles ; who, then, living with the king and
queen, could have thought of Corbeil ?

Unhappily, from this iorgetfulness of the court, Famine,
that specter which sleeps with so much difficulty, but
which so easily awakens — Famine had descended, pale and
agitated, into the streets of Paris. She listens at all the
cornel's of the streets ; she recruits her train of vagabonds
and malefactors ; she glues her livid face against the win-
dows of the rich and of the public functionaries.

The men remember those commotions which liad cost
SO much blood ; they recall to mind the Bastile ; they
recollect Foulon, Berthier, and Flesselles ; they fear to

462 TAKING THE BASTILE.

have tho opprobrious name of assassins again attached to
them, and tliey wait.

But tlie women, who have as yet done nothing but Buf-
fer ! When women suffer, the suffering is triple — for the
chiki, who cries and who is unjust, because it has not a
consciousness of tlie cause — for the chikl who says to its
mother: "Why do you not give me bread?" — for the
husband, who, gloomy and taciturn, leaves the house in
the morning to return to it in the evening still more
gloomy and taciturn ; and finally, for herself, the painful
echo of conjugal and maternal sufferings. The women
burn to do something in their turn ; they wish to serve
their country in their own way.

Besides, was it not a woman who had brought about the
1st of October at Versailles ?

It was, therefore, for the women, in their turn, to bring
about the 5th of October at Paris.

Gilbert and Billot were sitting in the Cafe de Foy,* in
the Palais Royal. It was at the Cafe de Foy that motions
were proposed. Suddenly the door of the coffee-house is
thrown open, and a woman enters it, much agitated. She
denounces the black and white cockades which from
Versailles have invaded Paris ; she proclaims the public
danger.

It will be remembered that Charny had said to the
queen :

" Madame, there will be really much to apprehend
when the women begin to stir themselves/'

Til is was also the opinion of Gilbert.

Therefore, on seeing that the women were actually be-
stirring themselves, he turned to Billot, uttering only
these five words :

*'To the Hotel de Ville."

Since the conversation which had taken placo between
Billot, Gilbert, and Pitou — and in consequence of which
Pitou had returned to Villers-Cotterets with young Sebsis-
tian Gilbert— Billot obeyed Gilbert upon a single word, a
gesture, a sign, for he had fully comprehended that if he
was strength, Gilbert was intelligence.

They both rushed out of the coffee-house, crossed the
garden of the Palais Royal diagonally, and then through
the Cour des Fontaines reached tbe Rue St. Uonore.
* A celebrated coffee-house.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 463

When they were near the corn-market, they met a young
girl coming out of the Rue Bourdenais, who was beating
a drum.

Gilbert stopped, astonished.

'' What can this mean ? " said he.

" Zounds ! doctor, don't you see," said Billot, ''it is a
pretty girl who is beating a drum — and really, not badly,
on my faith ! "

" She must have lost something," said a passer-by.

''She is very pale," rejoined Billot.

" Ask her what she wants," said Gilbert.

" Ho ! my pretty girl ! " cried Billot, " what are you
oeating that drum for ?"

" I am hungry," she replied, in a weak but shrill voice.

And she continued on her way, beating the drum.

Gilbert had waited.

" Oh ! oh ! " cried he, " this is becoming terrible."

And he looked more attentively at the women who were
following the young girl with the drum.

They were haggard, staggering, despairing.

Among these women there were some who had not tasted
food for thirty hours.

From among these women, every now and then, would
break forth a crj^ which was threatening even from its
very feebleness, for it could be divined that it issued from
famished mouths.

" To Versailles ! " they cried—" to Versailles ! "

And on their way, they made sigTis to all the women
whom they perceived in the houses, and they called to all
the women who were at their windows.

A carriage drove by ; two ladies were in that carriage ;
they put their heads out of the windows and began to
laugh.

The escort of the drum-beater stopped. About twenty
women seized the horses, and then, rushing to the coach
doors, made the two ladies alight and Join their group, in
spite of their recriminations and a resistance which two
or three hard knocks on tlie head soon terminated.

Behind these women, who proceeded but slowly, on
account of their stopping to recruit as they went along,
walked a man with his hands in his pockets.

This man, whose face was thin and pale, of tall, lank
stature, was dressed in an iron-gray coat, black waistcoat

464 TAKING THE BASTILE.

and small-clothes ; he wore a small, shabby, three-cornered
hat placed obliquely over his forehead.

A long sword beat against his thin but muscular legs.

He followed, looking, listening, devouring everything
with his piercing eyes, which rolled beneath his black
eyelids.

** Hey ! why, yes,*' cried Billot, ** I certainly know that
face ; I have seen it at every riot."

" It is Maillard, the usher," said Gilbert.

*' Ah ! yes, that's he — the man who walked over the
plank after me at the Bastile ; he was more skilful than I
was, for he did not fall into the ditch."

Maillard disapjieared with the women at the corner of a
street.

Billot felt a great desire to do as ]^[aillard had done, but
Gilbert dragged him on to the Hotel de Yille.

It was very certain that the gathering would go there,
whether it was a gathering of men or of women. Instead
of following the course of the river, he went straight to
its mouth.

Tliey knew at the Hotel de Ville what was going on in
Paris ; but they scarcely noticed it. Of what importance
was it, in fact, to the phlegmatic Bailly or to the aristo-
cratic Lafayette that a woman had taken it into her head
to beat a drum ? It was anticipating the carnival, and
that was all.

But when, at the heels of this woman who was beating
the drum, they saw two or three thousand women — when,
at the sides of this crowd, which was increasing every
minute, they saw advancing a no less considerable troop
of men, smiling in a sinister manner, and carrying their
hideous weapons — when they understood that these men
were smiling at the anticipation of the evil which these
women were about to commit, an evil the more irremedi-
able from their knowing that the public forces would not
attempt to stop the evil before it was committed, and tiiat
the legal powers would not punish afterward, tliey began
to comprehend the serious nature of the circumstances.

These men smiled because the ill they had not dared to
commit, they would gladly have seen committed by the
most inoffensive half of the human kind.

In about half an hour there were ten thousand women
assembled ou the Place de Greve.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 465

These ladies, seeing that their numbers were sufficient,
began to deliberate with their arms akimbo.

The deliberation was by no means a calm one ; those
who deliberated were, for the most part, porteresses,
market-women, and prostitutes. Many of these women
were royalists, and far from thinking of doing any harm
to the king and queen, would have allowed themselves to
be killed to serve them. The noise which was made by
this strange discussion might have been heard across the
river, and by the silent towers of Notre Dame, which,
after seeing so many things, were preparing themselves to
hear things still more curious.

The result of the deliberation was as follows :

*' Let us just go and burn the Hotel de Ville, where so
many musty papers are made out to prevent our eating
our daily food."

And in the Hotel de Ville they were at that moment
trying a baker who had sold bread to the poor under
weight.

It will be easily comprehended that the dearer bread is,
the better is every operation of this nature ; only the more
lucrative it is, the more dangerous.

In consequence, the admirers of lamp justice were only
waiting for the baker with a new rope.

The guards of the Hotel de Ville wished to save the
unhappy culprit, and used all their strength to eifect it.
But for some time past it has been seen that the result
but ill accorded with these philanthropic intentions.

The women rushed on these guards, dispersed them,
made a forcible entry into the Hotel de Ville, and the
sack began.

They wished to throw into the Seine all they could not
carry away.

The men were, therefore, to be cast into the water — -
the building itself set fire to.

This was rather heavy work.

There was a little of everything in the Hotel de Ville.

In the first place, there were three hundred electors.

There were also the assistants.

There were the mayors of the different districts.

" It would take a long time to throw all these men into
the water," said a woman, who was in a hurry to conclude
the affair.

4GG TAKING THE BASTILE.

" They deserve it richly, notwithstanding, observed an-
other.

'* Yes ; but we have no time to spare."

" Well, then," cried another, " the quickest way will
be to burn them all, and everything with them."

They ran about looking for torches, and to get fagots to
set fire to the municipality. While this was doing, in
order not to lose time, they caught an abbe, the Abbe
Lefevre Dormesson, and strung him up.

Fortunately for the abbe, the man in the gray coat was
there ; he cut the rope, and the poor abbe fell from a
height of seventeen feet, sprained one of his feet, and
limped away amid shouts of laughter from these Me-
goeras.

The reason for the abbe being allowed to get away was
that the torches were lighted, and the incendiaries had
already these torches in their hands, and they were about
to set fire to the archives ; in two minutes the whole place
would have been in a blaze.

Suddenly the man in the gray coat rushed forward and
snatched torches and fagots out of the women's hands;
the women resisted — the man lay about him right and left
with the lighted torches, setting lire to their petticoats,
and while they were occupied in extinguishing it, he ex-
tinguished the papers which had already been ignited.

Who, then, is this man who thus opposes the frightful
will of ten thousand furious creatures ?

AVhy, then, do they allow themselves to be governed by
this man ? They had half hanged the Abbe Lefevre ;
they could hang that man more effectually, seeing that he
would be no longer there to i^revent them from hanging
whom they pleased.

Guided by this reasoning, a frantic chorus arose from
them, threatening him with death, and to these threats
deeds were added.

Tlie women surrounded the man with the gray coat,
and threw a rope round his neck.

But Billot hastened forward. Billot was determined to
render the same service to Maillard, which Maillard had
rendered the abb6.

He grasped the rope, which he cut into three pieces,
with a well-tempered and sharp knife, which at that
moment served its owner to cut a rope, but which, in an

TAKING THE BASTILE. 467

extremity, wielded as it was by a powerful arm, might
serve him still more importantly.

And while cutting the rope and getting piece by piece
of it as he could, Billot cried :

" Why, you unfortunate wretches, you do not then
recognize Monsieur Maillard ? "

At that well-known and redoubtable name all these
women at once paused ; they looked at one another, and
wiped the perspiration from their brows.

The work had been a difficult one, and although they
were in the month of October, they might well persjiire
in accomplishing it.

" A conqueror of the Bastile — and that conqueror Mail-
lard ? Maillard, the usher of the Chatelet ! Long live
Maillard ! "

Threats were immediately turned into caresses ; they
embrace Maillard, and all cry, " Long live Maillard ! "

Maillard exchanged a hearty shake of the hand and a
look with Billot.

The shake of the hand implied, "We are friends ! "

The look implied, " Should you ever stand in need of
me, you may calculate upon me."

Maillard had resumed an influence over these women,
which was so much the greater from their reflecting that
they had committed some trifling wrong toward him, and
which he had to pardon.

But Maillard was an old sailor on the sea of popular
fury ; he knew the ocean of the faubourgs, which is raised
by a breath, and calmed again by a word.

He knew how to speak to these human waves, when
they allow you time enough to speak.

Moreover, the moment was auspicious for being heard.
They had all rem.ained silent around Maillard.

Maillard would not allow that Parisian women should
destroy the municipal authorities, the only power to pro-
tect them ; he would not allow them to annihilate the
civic registers, which proved that their children were not
all bastards.

The harangue of Maillard was of so novel a nature, de-
livered in so loud and sarcastic a tone, that it produced a
great effect.

No one should be killed — nothing should be burned.

But they insist on going to Versailles. It is there that

468 TAKING THE BASTILE.

exists the evil. It is there that they pass their nights in
orgies, while Piiris is starving. It is Versailles that de-
vours everything. Corn and flour are deficient in Paris,
because, instead of coming to Paris, they are sent direct
from Corbeil to Versailles.

It would not be thus, if the great baker, the baker's
wile, and the baker's little boy were at Paris.

It was under these nicknames that they designated the
king, tiic queen, and the dauphin — those natural dis-
tributors of the people's bread.

They would go to Versailles.

Since tlicse women are organized into troops, since they
have muskets, cannon, and gunpowder — and those wlio
have not muskets nor gunpowder have pikes and pitch-
forks— they ought to have a general.

And why not ? the National Guard has one.

Lafayette is tlie general of the men.

Muillard is the general of the women.

M. Lafayette commands his do-little grenadiers, which
api)ear to be an army of reserve, for they do so little when
there is so much to he done.

Maillard will command the active army.

AVithout a smile, without a wink, IMaillard. accepts liis
ap})ointment.

Mailhu'd is general commandant of the women of Paris.

The campaign will not be a long one, but it will be
decisive.

CHAPTER XX.

It was really an army that Maillard commanded.

It had cannons — deprived of carriages and wheels, it is
true ; but tliey had been placed on carts. It had muskets
— many of which were deficient in locks and triggers, it is
true ; but every one had a bayonet.

It had a qnaiitity of other weapons — very awkward ones,
it is true ; but they were weapons.

it had gunpowder, wliich was carried in pocket-hand-
kerchiefs, in caps, and in pockets ; and in the midst of
these living cartouch-boxcs walked tlie artillerymen with
their ligiited matclies.

Tlwt tlie whole army was not blown into the air during

TAKING THE BASTILE. 469

this extraordinary journey, was certainly a perfect
miracle.

Maillard at one glance appreciated the feelings of his
army. He saw that it would be of no use to keep it on
the square where it had assembled, nor to confine it within
the walls of Paris, but to lead it on to Versailles, and, once
arrived there, to prevent the harm which it might attempt
to do.

This diflficult, this heroic task, Maillard was determined
to accomplish.

And, in consequence, Maillard descends the steps and
takes the drum which was hanging from the shoulders of
the young girl.

Dying with hunger, the poor young girl has no longer
strength to carry it. She gives up the drum, glides along
a wall, and falls with her head against a post.
' A gloomy pillow — the pillow of hunger !

Maillard asks her name. She replies that it is Made-
leine Chambry. Her occupation had been carving in wood
for churches. But who now thinks of endowing churches
with those beautiful ornaments in wood, those beautiful
statues, those magnificent basse-relievos, the masterpieces
of the fifteenth century.

Dying with hunger, she had become a flower-girl in the
Palais Royal.

But who thinks of purchasing flowers when money is
wanting to buy even bread ? Flowers, those stars which
shine in the heaven of peace and abundance — flowers are
withered by storms of wind and revolutions.

Being no longer able to sculpture her fruits in oak —
being no longer able to sell her roses, her jasmines and
lilies, Madeleine Chambry took a drum, and beat the terri-
ble reveille of hunger.

She also must go to Versailles — she who luid assembled
all this gloomy deputation ; only, as she is too feeble to
walk, she is to be carried there in a cart.

When they arrive at Versailles, they will ask that she may
be admitted into the palace, Avith twelve other women ;
she is to be the famished orator, and she will there plead
before the king the cause of all those that are starving.

This idea of Maillard's was much applauded.

And thus by a word Maillard had at once changed every
hostile feeling.

470 TAKING THE BASTILE.

They did not before this know why they were going
th. c ; they did not know wliut they were going to do
there.

But now they know; they know that a deputation of
twelve women, witli Madeleine Chanibry at their head,
were going to supplicate tlie king, in the name of hunger,
to take compassion on his people.

Somewhere about seven thousand women were there
assembled. They commenced their march, going along
the quays.

But on arriving at the Tuilcries, loud shouts were
heard.

]\[aillard jumped upon a post in order to be seen by the
whole of his army.

'' What is it that you want ?"' he asked them.

*' AYe wish to pass through the Tuileries."

*'That is impossible," replied Maillard.

"And why is it impossible?" cried seven thousand
voices.

" Because the Tuileries is the king's house and the king's
gardens ; because to pass through them Avithout the king's
permission Avould be to insult the king — and more than
that, it would be attacking, in the king's person, the
liberty of all."

" Well, then, be it so," say the women ; " ask permission
of the Swiss." *

^\Iaillard went to the Swiss, his cocked hat in his hand.

"My friend," said he, "will you allow these ladies to
go througli the Tuileries ? They will only go through tlie
archway, and will not do any injury to the plants or
trees."

The only answer the Swiss gave was to draw his long
rapier, and to rush upon Maillard.

Maillard drew his sword, which was full a foot shorter,
and their weapons crossed.

AVhile they were tilting at each other, a woman went
behind the Swiss and gave him a fearful blow upon the
head with a broom-handle, and laid him at Maillard's feet.
At the same time, another woman was about to run the
Swiss tlirough the body with a thrust of her bayonet.

Maillard sheathes his sword, takiss that of the Swiss
under one arm, the musket of the woman under the other,
* The porter, or gate-keeper.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 47I

picks up his hat, which had fallen to the ground daring
the struggle, puts it upon his head, and then leads his vic-
torious troops through the Tuileries, where, in fulfilment
of the promise he had made, no sort of damage was com-
mitted by them.

Let ns, therefore, allow them to continue their way
quietly through the Cours la Reme, and go on toward
Sevres, where they separated into two bands, and let us
return to what is going on at Paris.

These seven thousand women had not failed in drowning
the electors, in hanging the Abbe Lefevre and Maillard.
and burning the Hotel de Ville, without making a certain
degree of noise.

On hearing this noise, which had been reechoed even'
in the most remote quarters of the capital, Lafayette had
hastened toward the Hotel de Ville.

■ He was passing a sort of review at the Champ de Mars.
He had been on horseback from eight o'clock in the morn-
ing ; he reached the square of the Hotel de Ville just as the
clock was striking twelve.

The caricatures of tliose days represented Lafayette as a
centaur, the body of which was the famous white norse
which had become proverbial. The head was that of the
commandant of the National Guard.

From the commencement of the revolution, Lafayette
spoke on horseback, Lafayette eat on horseback, Lafayette
gave all his orders on horseback.

It often even happened that ho slept on horseback.

And, therefore, when by chance he could sleep on his
bed, Lafayette slept soundly.

When Lafayette reached the Quay Pelletier, ne was
stopped by a man who had been riding at full gallop on an
admirably swift horse.

This man was Gilbert ; he was going to Versailles — he
was going to forewarn the king of the visit with which he
was threatened, and to place himself at his orders.

In two words he related all that had happened to La-
fayette.

After that he rode off again at full speed.

Lafayette went on toward the Hotel de Ville.

Gilbert toward Versailles. Only, as the women were
going on the right bank of the Seine, he took the left side
of tlie river.

472 TAKING THE BASTILE.

The square before the Hotel de Ville, having been vacated
by the women, was soon afterward filled with men.

These men were National Guards, receiving pay or not
receiving it — old French Guards, above all, who, having
gone over to the people, had lost their privileges of king's
guards — privileges wliicli had been inherited by the Swiss
and the body-guards.

To the noise made by the women had succeeded the noise
of the alarm-bell and the drums, calling the people to arms.

Lafayette made his way through all this crowd, aliglited
from his horse at the foot of the steps, and witliout paying
any attention to the acclamations, mingled with threats,
excited by his presence, he began to dictate a letter to the
king upon the insurrection which had taken place that
morning.

He had got to the sixth line of his letter, when the door
of the secretary's office was violently thrown open.

Lafayette raised his eyes. A deputation of grenadiers
demanded to be received by the general.

Lafayette made a sign to the deputation that they might
come in.

They entered the room.

The grenadier wlio had been appointed spokesman of the
deputation advanced to the table.

" General,^' said he, in a firm voice, " we are deputed by
ten companies of grenadiers. We do not believe that you are
a traitor ; but we are betrayed. It is time that all this should
come to an end. We cannot turn our bayonets against
women who are asking us for bread. The Provisioning Com-
mittee is either peculating, or it is incompetent ; in either
the one or the other case, it is necessary that it should bo
changed. The people are unhappy, the source of their
un]iiipi)iness is at Versailles. It is necessary to go there
to fetcli the king and bring him to Paris. The Flanders
regiment must be exterminated, as well as the body-guards,
who have dared to trample under foot the national cockade.
If the king be too weak to wear the crown, let him al)dicate ;
we will crown his son. A Council of Regency will be nomi-
nated, and all will then go well."

liafayetto gazed at tlie speaker witli astonisliment. IIo
ha<l witnessed cTisturbant^es, lie liad wept over assassina-
tions ; but this was the first time that the breath of revolu-
tion had in reality been personally addressed to him.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 473

This possibility that the people saw of bein<^ able to do
without the king, amazed him — it did more, it confounded
him.

" How is this ? " cried he. ''Have 3'ou, then, formed
the project of making war upon the king, and thus compel
him to abandon us ? "

"■' General," replied the spokesman, " we love and we
respect the king ; we should be much hurt should he leave
ns ; for we owe him much. But, in short, should he leave
US, we have theMauphin."

*' Gentlemen ! gentlemen ! "cried Lafayette, ''beware of
what you are doing ; you are attacking the crown, and it is
my duty not to allow such a step."

" General," replied the National Guard, bowing, " we
would for you shed the last drop of our blood. But the
people are unhappy ; the source of the evil is at Versailles.
We must go to Versailles and bring the king to Paris. It
is the people's will."

Lafayette saw that it was necessary to sacrifice his own
feelings ; and this was a necessity from which he never
shrunk.

He descends into the center of the square, and wishes to
harangue the people ; but cries of *• To Versailles ! to
Versailles ! " drowned his voice.

Suddenly a great tumult was heard proceeding from the
Eue de la Vannerie. It is Bailly, who, in his turn, is
coming to the Hotel de Ville.

At the sight of Bailly cries of " Bread ! bread ! To Ver-
sailles ! " burst from every side.

Lafayette, on foot, lost amid the crowd, feels that the
tide continues rising higher and higher, and will com-
pletely swallow him up.

He presses through the crowd in order to reach his horse,
with the same ardor that a shipwrecked mariner swims to
reach a rock.

At last he grasps his bridle, vaults on his charger's back,
and urges him on toward the entrance of the Hotelde Ville ;
but the way is completely closed to him ; walls of men
have grown up between him and it.

"Zounds, general!" cry the men, "you must remaiu
with us."

At the same time, tremendous shouts are heard of "To
Versailles I to Versailles ! "

474: TAKING THE BASTILE.

Lafayette wavers, hesitates. Yes, nndonbtedly, by going
to Versailles, he may be very useful to the king ; but will
he be able to master and restrain this crowd who are urging
him to Versailles ?

Suddenly a man descends the steps, pushes through the
crowd, a letter in his liand, and makes such good use of
his feet and elbows, particularly the latter, that he at
length reaches Lafayette.

This man was the ever indefatigable Billot.

" Here, general," said he, *' this comes from the Three
Hundred."

It was thus the electors were called.

Lafayette broke the seal and began to read it to himself ;
but twenty thousand voices at once cried out :

" The letter ! the letter ! "

Lafayette was, therefore, compelled to read the letter
aloud. He makes a sign to request they will be silent.
Instantaneously, and as by a miracl •, silence succeeds to
the immense tumult, and Lafayette reads the following
letter, not one word of which was lost by the people :

" Seeing the state of circumstances and the desire of the
people, and on the representation of the commandant-
general that it was impossible to refuse, the electors as-
sembled in council authorize the commandant-general, and
even order him, to repair to Versailles.

''Four commissaries of the district will accompany
him."

Poor Lafayette had absolutely represented nothing of
the electors, who were by no means disinclined to leave
some portion of the responsibility of the events which were
about to happen, on his shoulders. But the people — they
believed that he had really made representations, and this
coincided so precisely with their views, that they made
the air ring with tlieir shouts ot " Long live Lafayette ! "

Lafayette turned pale, but in his turii repeated, "To
Versailles ! "

Fifteen thousand men followed him, with a more silent
enLluisiasm, but wliicli Avas at tlic same time mow terrible,
tiian tliat of the women who had gone forward as the
advance guard.

All those peo])lo were to assemble again nt Vorsailloa to
ask tlio king for the oru?ubs which foil from tlic tiihlo of
the body-guards during the orgies of the 1st of October.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 475

CHAPTER XXL

As usual, they were completely ignorant at Versailles of
what was going on at Paris.

After the scenes which we have described, and at the
occurrence of which the queen had openly congratulated
herself, the queen was reposing herself, after her fatigue.

She had an army, she had her devotees, she had counted
her enemies, she wished to begin the contest.

Had she not the defeat of the 14tli of July to avenge ?
Had she not tlie king's journey to Paris, a journey from
which he had returned with the tricolored cockade in his
hat, to forget, and to make her court forget also ?

Poor woman ! she but little expected the journey which
she herself would be shortly compelled to take.

Since her altercation with Charny, she had scarcely
spoken to him. She affected to treat Andree with her
former friendliness, which had for a time been deadened
in her heart — but which was forever extinguished in that
of her rival.

As to Charny, she never turned toward or looked at
him, but when she was compelled to address herself to him
upon matters regarding his service, or to give him au
order.

It was not a family disgrace ; for on the very morning
on which the Parisians were to leave Paris to come to
Versailles, the queen Avas seen talking affectionately with
young George de Charny, tb.e second of the three brothers,
who, in contradiction to Olivier, had given such warlike
counsels to the queen on the arrival of the news of the
capture of the Bastile.

And, in fact, at nine in the morning, as the young of-
ficer was crossing the gallery, to announce to the hunts-
man that the king intended going out, wlieu Marie An-
toinette, returning from mass in the chapel saw him, she
called him to her.

" Wbore are you running thus, sir ?" said she to him.

*' As soon as I perceived your majesty, I ran no longer,'*
replied George ; *'on the contrary, I instantly stopped, and

476 TAKING THE BASTILE.

I was waiting humbly for the honor you have done me ia
addressing me."

"That does not prevent you, sir, from replying to my
question, and telling me whither you were going."

" Madame," replied George, " I am on duty to day, and
form part of the escort. His majesty hunts to-day, and I
am going to the huntsman to make arrangements for the
meet."

*' Ah ! the king hunts again to-day," said the queen,
looking at the big dark clouds which were rolling on from
Paris toward Versailles. " He is wrong to do so. The
weather appears to be threatening ; does it not, Andree ?"

" Yes, madame," absently replied the Countess de
Charny.

" Are you not of that opinion, sir ? '

" I am so, madame ; but such is the king's will.

*' May the king's will be done in the woods and on the
high-roads," replied the queen, with that gaiety of manner
which was habitual with her, and which neither the sorrows
of the heart nor political events could ever deprive her of.

Then, turning toward Andr6e :

" It is but just that he should have this amusement,"
said the queen to lier, in a whisper.

And then, aloud, to George :

.*' Can you tell me, sir, where the king i-.itends
hunting ? "

"In the Meudon Wood, madame."

" Well, then, accompany him, and watch carefully over
his safety."

At this moment the Count de Charny had entered the
room. He smiled kindly at Andree, and shaking his head,
ventured to say to the queen :

" Tbat is a recommendation which my brother will not
fail to remember, madame ; not in the midst of the king's
pleasures, but in the midst of his dangers."

At the sound of the voice wliich had struck upon her
ear before her eyes had warned her of the presence of
Charny, Marie Antoinette started, and, turning round :

" I should have been much astonislied," said she, with
disdainful harshness, " if such a saying had not proceeded
from the Count Olivier dn Charny."

"And why t;o, madame?" respectfully inquired the
count.

TAKING THE BASTILE. ' 477

" Because it prophesies misfortune, sir."

Aadree turned pale on seeing that the color fled from
her husband's cheeks.

He bowed witliout offering a reply.

Then, on a look from his wife, who appeared to be
amazed at his being so patient :

" I am really extremely unfortunate/' he said, " since I
no longer know how to speak to the queen without offend-
ing her.

The no longer was emphasized in the same manner as
a skilful actor would emphasize the more important
syllables.

The ear of the queen was too well exercised not to per-
ceive at once the stress which Charny had laid ujion his
words :

'^ No longer!" she exclaimed sharjily, "no longer;
what mean you by qio longer ? "

" I have again spoken unfortunately, it would appear,"
said De Charny, unaffectedly.

And he exchanged a look with Andree, which the queen
this time perceived.

She, in her turn, became pale, and then her teeth firmly
set together with rage.

*'The saying is bad," she exclaimed, 'Mvhen the in-
tention is bad."

" The ear is hostile," said Charny, " when the thought
is hostile."

And after this retort, which was more just than respect-
ful, he remained silent.

'' I shall wait to reply," said the queen, ''until the
Count de Charny is more happy in his attacks."

" And I," said De Charny, "shall wait to attack until
the queen shall be more fortunate than she has lately been
in servants."

Andree eagerly seized her husband's hand, and was pre-
paring to leave the room with him.

A glance from the queen restrained her. She had ob-
served this gesture.

*' But, in fine, what has your husband to say to me ?"
asked the queen.

" He had intended telling your majesty that, having
been sent to Paris yesterday by the king, he had found the
city in a most extraordinary state of ferment."

478 TAKING THE BA&TILE.

"Again!" cried tlie queen; ''audon what account ?
The Parisians have taken the Bastile, and are now oc-
cupied in demolishing: it — what can they require more?
Answer me, Monsieur de Charny."

" That is true, madanie," replied the count ; ** but, as
they cannot eat the stones, they are calling out for bread
— they say that they are hungry."

" Tliat they are liungry ! that they are hungry!" ex-
claimed the queen ; *'and what would they have us do in
that respect ?"

'' There was a time," obsei*ved Charny, " when the queen
was the first to compassionate the sufferings of the people ;
there was a time when she would ascend even to the gar-
rets of the poor, and the prayers of the poor ascended
from the garrets to God with blessings on her head."

" Yes," bitterly replied the queen, " and I was well re-
warded, was I not, for the compassion which I felt for the
misery of others ? One of the greatest misfortunes which
ever befell me was in consequence of having ascended to
one of those garrets."

" Because your majesty was once deceived," said Oharny,
" because she bestowed he^* favors and her grace upon a
miserable wretch, ought she to consider all human nature
upon a level Avith that infamous Avoman ? Ah, madame I
niadume ! how at that time were you beloved !"

The queen darted a furious glance at Charny.

" But, finally," she said, " what did actually take place
in Paris yesterday ? Tell me only tilings that yon have
yourself seen, sir ; I wish to be sure of the truth of your
words."

•' What I saw, madame ! I saw a portion of the popu-
lace crowded together on the quays, vainly awaiting the
arrival of flour. I saw others standing in long files at the
bakers' doors, uselessly Avaiting for bread. What I saw Avas
a starving people ; husbands looking sorrowfully at their
wives, mothers looking sorroAvfully at their children.
What I saw ! I saAv clinched and threatening hands held
up in the direction of Versailles. Ah ! nnidame ! madame !
the dangers of which I just now spoke to you are ap-
proaching— the opportunity of dying for your majesty — a
nappiness Aviiich my brother and myself will bo the first to
claim. I fear the day is not far distant when it Avill be
offered to us."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 479

The queen turned her back to Charny with an impatient
gesture, and went to her window and placed her pale
though burning face against a pane of glass. This window
looked into the marble courtyard.

She had scarcely done this when she was seen to start.

'^ Andree I" cried she, "come here and see who is this
horseman coming toward us ; he appears to be the bearer
of very urgent news."

Andree went to the window, but almost immediately
recoiled a step from it, turning very pale.

"' Ah ! madame," cried she, in a tone of reproach.

Charny hastened toward the window ; he had minutely
observed all that had passed.

" That horseman,*' said he, looking alternately at the
queen and at Andree, *' is Doctor Gilbert,"

" Ah ! that is true," said the queen ; and in a tone
which rendered it impossible, even to Andree, to judge
whether the queen had drawn her to the window in one of
her fits of feminine vengeance, to which poor Marie An-
toinette sometimes gave way, or whether her eyes, weak-
ened by watching aird the tears she had shed, could no
longer recognize, at a certain distance, even those whom
it was her interest to recognize.

An ice-like silence immediately ensued, and the three
principal characters in this scene interrogated and replied
to one another merely by looks.

It was, in fact, Gilbert who was coming, bringing with
him the untoward nev»'s which Charny had predicted.

Although he had hurriedly alighted from his horse, al-
though he had rapidly ascended the staircase, although
the three agitated faces of tlie queen, Andree, and Charny
were turned toward the door which led to this staircase,
and by which the doctor ought to have entered the room,
this door did not open.

There was, then, on the part of these three persons, an
anxious suspense of some minutes.

Suddenly, a door on tlic opposite side of the room was
opened, and an officer came in.

" ]\Iadame," said he, "Doctor Gilbert, who hns come
for the purpose of conversing with the king on important
and urgent matters, demands to have the honor of being
received by your majesty, the king having set out for
Meudon an hour ago."

480 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Let him come in I " said the queen, fixing on the door
a look which was firm even to harshness ; while Audree,
as if naturally she ouglit to find a supporter in her hus-
band, drew back and supported herself on the count's
arm.

G ilbert soou made his appearance on the threshold of
the door.

CHAPTER XXII.

0 ILBERT cast a glance on the several personages v.'hom
we have placed on the stage, and advancing respectfully
toward Marie Antoinette :

'•' Will the queen permit nie," said he, "in the absence
of her august husband, to communicate to her the news
of which"! am the bearer ? "

'' Speak, sir," said Marie Antoinette. " On seeing you
coming at so rapid a pace, I summoned up all my forti-
tude, for I felt well assured tliat you were bringing me
some fearful news."

" Would the queen have preferred that I should hare
allowed her to be surprised ? Forewarned, the queen,
with that sound judgment, that elevated mind by which
she is characterized, the queen would advanre to meet the
danger ; and then, perhaps the danger might retreat be-
fore her."

" Let us see, sir — what is this danger ?"

" Madame, seven or eight thousand women have set
out from Paris, and are coming armed to Versailles."

*' Seven or eight thousand women ! " cried the queen,
with an air of contempt.

''Yes ; but they will, most likely, have stopped on the
way ; and, perhaps, on arriving here, their numbers will
amount to fifteen or twenty thousand."

*' And for what purpose are they coming ? "

" They are hungry, madame, and they are coming to
ask the King for bread."

The queen turned toward Charny.

"Alas! marlame/' said the count, " that which I pre-
dicted has now happened."

** What is to be done ? " asked Marie Antoinette.

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 481

*' The king should, in the first place, be informed of
it/' said Gilbert.

The queen turned quickly toward him.

"The king! Oh, no!" she cried, "what good pur-
pose would it answer to expose him to such a meetnig ? "

This cry burst forth from the heart of Marie Antoinette
almost involuntarily. It was a convincing manifestation
of the intrepidity of the queen, of her consciousness of
possessing a firmness which was altogether persoiuil to
her, and, at the same time, of her consciousness of hei*
husband's weakness, which slie ought not to have admitted
even to herself, and should not, more particularly, have
revealed to strangers.

But was Oharuy a stranger ? and Gilbert, was he a
stranger ?

No ; did not those two men, on the contrary, appear to
be elected by Providence, the one to be the safeguard of
the queen, the otlier to protect the king ?

Charny replied at once to the queen and to Gilbert ;
he resumed all his empire, for he had made the sacrifice
of his pride.

••' Madame," said he, '' Monsieur Gilbert is right ; it is
necessary that the king should be informed of this occur-
rence. The king is still beloved ; the king will present
himself to these women ; he will liarangue them, he will
disarm them."

"But," observed the queen, "who will undertake to
give this information to the king ? The road between
this and Meudou is no doubt ali-eady intercepted, and it
would be a dangerous enterprise."

" The king is in the forest of Meudon ? "

" Yes ; and it is probable the roads "

" Your majesty Avill deign to consider me as a military
man," said Charny, unostentatiously; "a soldier, and
one whose duty it is to expose his life "

And, having said these words, ho did not wait for a
reply; he listened not to the sigh which escaped the
queen, but ran rapidly down the staircase, jumped upon
one of the guards' horses, and hastened toward Meudou,
accompanied by two cavaliers.

He had scarcely disappeared, and had replied by a sign
to a farewell gesture which Andrea addressed to iiim from
the window, when a distant noise, which resembled the

21— Dlmas— Vol. IX.

482 TAKING THE BASTILE.

roaring of tlie waves in a storm, made the queen listen
anxiously. This noise appeared to proceed from the fur-
thest trees on the Paris road, which, from the apartment
in which tlie queen was, could bo seen towering above the
fog at some distance from the last houses of Versailles.

Tlie horizon soon became as threatening to the eye as it
had been to the ear ; a hail shower began to checker the
dark-gray haze.

And yet, notwithstanding this threatening state of the
heavens', crowds of persons were entering Versailles.

Messengers arrived continually at tlic palace.

Every messenger brought intelligence of numerous
columns being on their way from Paris, and every one
thouglit of the joys and the easy triumphs of the preced-
ing days, some of them feeling at heart a regret that was
akin to remorse, others an instinctive terror.

The soldiers were anxious, and looking at one another,
slowly took up their arms. Like drunken people, who
endeavor to shake off the effects of wine, the officers, de-
moralized by the visible uneasiness of their soldiers and the
murmurs of the crowd, with difficulty breathed in this at-
mosphere, impregnated as it was with misfortunes which
were about to be attributed to them.

On their side, the body-guards — somewhere about three
hundred men — coolly mounted their horses, and with that
hesitation which seizes men of the sword when they feci
they have to deal with enemies whose mode of attack is
unknown to them.

What could they do against women who had set out
threatening, and with arms, but who had arrived disarmed,
and who could no longer raise even their hands, so ener-
vated were they with fatigue, so emaciated were they by
hunger ?

And yet, at all hazards, they formed themselves into
line, drew their sabers, and waited.

At last, tlie women made their appearance ; they had
come by two roads. Half-way between Paris and Ver-
sailles they had separated, one party coming by St. Cloud,
the other by S(ivrcs.

Before they separated, eight loaves had been divided
among them ; it was all that could be found at Sevres,

Thirty-two pounds of bread for seven thousand per-
sons !

TAKING THE BASTILE. 433

On arriving at Versailles they could scarcely drag them-
selves along. More than three fourths of them had scat-
tered their weapons along the road. Maillard had induced
the remaining fourth to leave their arms in the first houses
they came to in Versailles.

Then, on entering into the town :

** Come now," said he, " that they may not doubt that
we are friends to royalty, let us sing, ' Vive Henri
Quatre.y

And in a dying tone, and with voices that had not
strength enough to ask for bread, they chanted the royal
national air.

The astonishment was, therefore, great at the palace
when, instead of shouts and threats, they heard them sing-
ing the loyal air — v/hen, above all, they saw the female
choristers staggering — for hunger has somewhat the effect
of drunkenness — and these wretched w^omen, leaning their
haggard, pale, and livid faces, begrimed with dirt, down
which the rain and perspiration were streaming, against
the gilded railings, and these faces appearing to be more
than doubled by the number of hands which grasped those
railings for support.

After a time would now and then escape from these
horribly fantastic groups lugubrious bowlings — in the
midst of these agonized faces would appear eyes flashing
lightnings.

Also, from time to time, all these hands, abandoning the
railings which sustained them, were thrust through the
space between them, and stretched forth toward the
palace.

Some of them were open and trembling — these were
soliciting.

Others were clinched and nervously agitated — these were
threatening.

Oh ! the picture was a gloomy one.

The rain and mud — so much for the heavens and earth.

Hunger and threatening gestures — so much for the be-
siegers.

Pity and doubt — such were the feelings of the defend-
ers.

While waiting the return of Louis XVI., agitated, but
firinly resolved, tlie queen gave orders for the defense of
the palace. By degrees, the courtiers, the officers, and

484: TAKING THE BASTILE.

the high dignitaries of the state grouped themselves around
her.

Ill the midst of them she perceived M. de St. Priest, the
minister for Paris.

" Go and inquire, sir," she said to him, " what it is
these people want."

M. de St. Priest immediately went down the staircase,
crossed the courtyard, and approached the railing.

" What is it that you demand ?" said he to the women.

*' Bread ! bread I bread ! " simultaneously cried a thou-
sand voices.

"' Bread ! "' replied M, de St. Priest, impatiently ; " when
you had but one master, you never were in Avant of bread.
Now that you have twelve hundred, you see to what they
have reduced you."

And M. de St. Priest withdrew amid the threatening
shouts of the famished creatures, giving strict orders that
the gates should be kept closed.

But a deputation advances, before which it is absolutely
necessary that the gates should be thrown open,

Maillard had presented himself to the National Assem-
bly in the name of the women ; he had succeeded in per-
suading thetn that the president, with a deputation of
twelve women, should proceed to the palace to make a
statement to the king of the position of affairs.

At the moment when the deputation, Avith Mounier at
its head, left the assembly, the king returned to the palace
at full gallop, entering it by the stable-yard.

Charny had found him in the forest at Meudon.

" Ah ! it is you, sir," cried the king, on perceiving him.
**I3 it me whom you are seeking ?"

" Yes, sire."

" What, then, has hai>pened ? You seem to have rid-
den hard."

'* Sire, there are at this moment ten thousand Avonicn
at Versailles, who have come from Paris, and who are cry-
ing for bread."

The king shrugged up his shoulders, but it was more
from a feeling of compassion tlian of disdain.

'* Alas ! " said he, " if I liad l)read for tlicm, I should
not have waited their coming from Paris to ask it of me."

But without nniking any furl her observation, he cast a
mournful look toward the place where the hounds were

TAKING THE BASTILE. 486

continuing their chase of the stcag which he was obliged to
abandon.

" Well, then, sir, let us go to Versailles," said he.

And he rode off toward A'^ersailles. ^

He had just arrived there, as we have said, when fright-
ful cries were heard proceeding from the Place d'Armes.

"AVhat is the meaning of that ?" inquired the king.

** Sire," cried Gilbert, entering the room, pale as death,
" they are your guards, who, led on by Monsieur George
de Charny, are charging u2)on the president of the National
Assembly and a deputation which he is leading here."

" Impossible ! " exclaimed the king.

*' Listen to the cries of those whom they are assassinat-
ing. Look ! look at the people who are flying in terror."

*' Let the gates be thrown open ! " cried the king. '^ I
\yill receive the deputation."

*'Bat, sire !" exclaimed the queen.

" Let the gates be opened," said Louis XVI. ; " the
palaces of kings ought to be considered as asylums."

" Alas ! excepting, jjerhaps, for kings themselves," said
the queen.

CHAPTEE XXIII.

Charky and Gilbert rushed down-stairs.

*' In the name of the king ! " cried the one.

*'In tlie name of the queen ! " cried the other.

And both of them added :

" Open the gates."

But this order was no sooner executed than the presi*
dent of the National Assembly was thrown down in the
courtyard and trampled under foot.

Two of the women forming the deputation were wounded
close by his side.

Gilbert and Charny threw themselves into the crowd.
These two men — the one proceeding from the highest
class of society, the other from the lowest — met, working
in tlie same cause.

The one wishes to save the queen, from his ardent love
for the queen ; the other wishes to save the king, from his
love for royalty.

On the gates being opened, the women rushed into the

486 TAKING THE BASTILE.

courtyard, and had thrown themselves into the ranks of
the body-guards and those of the Flanders regiment. They
threaten, they entreat, they caress. Who could resist
women when they implore those whom they address in the
name of their sisters, their mothers ?

'* Room, gentlemen, room for the deputation ! " cried
Gilbert.

And all the ranks were immediately opened to allow
Mounier to pass with the unhappy women he was about to
present to the king.

The king having been informed by Charny, who liad
hastened to him, waited for the deputation in the room
contiguous to the chapel.

It was Mounier who was to speak in the name of the

Assemblv.

It was Madeleine Chambry, the flower-girl, who had
beaten the drum, who was to speak in the name of the
women.

Mounier said a few words to the king, and presented to
him the voung flower-girl.

The latter stepped forward a pace or two and wished to
speak, but could only utter these words :

" Sire— bread ! "

And she fell fainting to the ground.

'-' Help ! help I " cried the king.

Andree hurried forward, and handed her smelling-bottle

to the king.

*' Ah, madamel" said Charny to the queen, in a re-
proachful tone.

The queen turned pale, and withdrew to her own apart-
ment. 11- IT

" Prepare the equipages," said she ; " the king and 1
are going to Rambouillet."

During this time, poor Madeleine Chambry was recov-
ering her senses, and finding herself in the king's arms,
who^was making her inhale the salts he held in his hand,
she uttered a cry of shame, and wished to kiss his hand.

But the king prevented her.

" My lovely child," said he, " allow me to embrace you,
you are well wortli the trouble.'*

♦' Oh, sire ! sire ! since you are so kind," said the young
girl, "give me an order "

*' What order ?" inquired the king.

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 487

" An order to liave wheat sent to Paris, so that famine
may cease."

" My dear child," said the king, "I will willingly sign
the order yon request, but in truth I am afraid it will not
be of much service to you."

The king seated himself at a table and began to write,
when suddenly a single musket-shot was heard, followed
by a tolerable quick fire of musketry.

" Ah ! good Grod ! good God ! " exclaimed the king,
"what can have happened ? See what it is, Monsieur
Gilbert."

A second charge upon another group of women had been
made, and this charge had brought about the isolated
mu^ket-shot and the volley which had been heard.

The isolated musket-shot had been fired by a man in the
crowd, and had broken the arm of M. de Savonniere, a
lieutenant in the guards, at the moment when that arm
was raised to strike a young soldier, who was behind a
sentry-box. and who, with uplifted and unarmed hands,
was protecting a woman who was on her knees behind him.

This musket-shot was replied to on the part of the
guards by five or six shots from their carbines.

Two of the shots told. A woman fell dead.

Another was carried off, seriously wounded.

The people became irritated, and in their turn two of
the body-guards fell from their horses.

At the same instant, cries of "Room! room!" are
heard ; they were the men from the Faubourg St. Antoine,
who were arriving, dragging with them three pieces of
artillery, with which they formed a battery opposite to
the principal gate of the palace.

Fortunately, the rain was falling in torrents ; the match
is uselessly applied to the touch-holes of these guns ; the
priming, completely soddened by the rain, does not ignite.

At this moment a voice whispers into the ear of Gilbert :

*' Monsieur de Lafayette is coming ; he cannot be more
than half a league from Versailles."

Gilbert in vain attempts to discover who has giveti him
this information ; but from whomsoever it might come, it
was valuable.

He looks around him — sees a horse without a rider — it
belonged to one of the two guards who had just beeu
killed.

488 TAKING THE BASTILE.

He leaps into the saddle, aud sets off in a gallop on the
road toward Paris.

The second horse without a rider follows him ; bat he
had scarcely gone twenty paces over the square, when the
horse is stopped by the bridle. Gilbert believes his in-
tention has been divined, aud that some one wishes to
pursue him. He casts a look behind him as he rides off.

They were not thinking of him at all ; but they were
hungry. They think of nothing but obtaining food, and
the poor horse is instantly butchered by a hundred
knives.

In a moment it is cut into a hundred pieces.

During this time the king had been informed, as Gilbert
had been, that General Lafayette was about to arrive.

He had signed, at the request of Mounier, his acceptance
of the Eights of Man.

He had signed, at the request of Madeleine Chambry,
the order for corn to be sent to Paris.

Furnished with this decree and this order which it was
thought would have tranquilized all minds, Maillard,
Madeleine Chambry, and a thousand of the women had
set out on their return to Paris.

Just beyond the first houses of Versailles they met
Lafayette, who, pressed by Gilbert, was riding at full speed,
having ordered the National Guards to follow him as
quickly as possible.

" Long live the king I " cried Maillard and the women,
waving the decrees above their heads.

"What was it, then, you were saying to me of the
dangers to which his majesty is exposed ?" said Lafayette,
with astonishment.

" Come on, general, come on ! " cried Gilbert, continu-
ing to urge him onward, "you shall yourself judge of
them."

And Lafayette spurred on his horse.

The National Guards entered Versailles with drums
beating aud colors flying.

At the first sounds of the drum which penetrated the
palaoo, tlie king felt that some one was respectfully touch-
ing his arm.

He turned round ; it was Andree.

" Ah ! it is you, Madame de Charny," said he. " "What
is the queen doing ? "

TAKING THE BASTILE. • 489

" Sire, the qneen sends to entreat that you will leave
Versailles, that you will not wait for the Parisians. At
the head of your guards and the soldiers of the Flanders
regiment, you can go anywhere."

"Are you of that opinion, Monsieur de Charny ?" in-
quired the king.

" Yes, sire, if you at once determine on passing the
frontier, but if not-^ — "

"If not?"

" It would be better to remain here."

The king shook his head.

He remains, not because he has the courage to remain,
but because he has not lirmness enough to decide on
going.

He murmured, in a low tone ;

"A fugitive king ! a fugitive king !"

Then, turning to Andree :

" Go and tell the queen to set out alone."

Andree left the room to execute her mission.

Ten minutes afterward the queen came in and seated
herself by the king's side.

" For what purpose have you come here, madame ? "
asked Louis XVI.

"To die with you, sire," replied the queen.

" Ah ! " murmured Oharny, "it is now that she is truly
beautiful."

The queen shuddered ; she had heard him.

" I believe, indeed, it would be better that I should die
than live," said she, looking at him.

At that moment the march of the National Guards was
heard under the windows of the palace.

Gilbert rapidly entered the room.

" Sire," said he to the king, "you have nothing further
to apprehend ; Monsieur de Lafayette is below."

The king did not like M. de Lafayette, but he did not
carry his feelings further than dislike.

With regard to the queen, it was a very different matter.
She frankly hated him, and took no pains to conceal her
hatred.

The result of this was that Gilbert received no reply,
although he had believed that the intelligence he had com-
municated was the most favorable he could have brought
at such a moment.

490 TAKING THE BASTILE.

But Gilbert was not a man to allow himself to be in-
timidated by royal silence.

" Yonr majesty has heard ? " cried he to the king, in a
firm tone. " Monsieur de Lafayette is below, and places
himself at your majesty's orders."

The queen continued silent.

The king made an effort to restrain his feelings.

** Let some one go and tell him that I thank him, and
invite him, in my name, to come upstairs."

An officer bowed, and left the room.

The queen drew back a step or two.

But the king with a gesture that was almost imperative,
made her resume her position.

The courtiers formed themselves into two groups.

Charny and Gilbert, with two or three others, remained
near the king.

All the rest retreated behind the queen's chair, and ar-
ranged themselves in a half circle round her.

The footsteps of a man, ascending the staircase alone,
were heard, and M. de Lafayette appeared in the doorwa}'.

In the midst of the silence which his appearance pro-
duced, a voice issuing from the group surrounding the
queen pronounced these words :

"There is Cromwell !"

Lafayette smiled.

" Cromwell would not have presented himself alone to
Charles the First," said he.

Louis XVI. turned frowningly toward these terrible
friends who wished to make an enemy of a man who had
hastened to his assistance.

Tlien, addressing Charny :

"Count," said he, "I shall remain. Monsieur de
Lafayette being here, I have nothing more to fear. Order
the troops to withdraw to liambouillet. The National
Guards will be posted at the exterior ditches, the body-
guards at thoso immediately near tlie loalace."

Then, turning to Lafayette :

"Come with me, general, I have to speak with you."

And as Gilbert was taking a step toward tlie door :

"No, doctor," cried the king, "you will not be one
too many. Come with us."

And showing the way to Lafayette and Gilbert, ho went
into a cabinet, into which they both followed him.

TAKING THE BASTILE. • 491

The queen followed them with her eyes, and when the
door had closed behind them :

"Ah!" cried she, "it was to-day that we ought to
have escaped from this. To-day there was still time. To-
morrow, perhajis, it will be too late."

And she, in her turn, left the room, to withdraw to her
own apartments.

A great light, similar to that of an extensive conflagra-
tion, illuminated the windows of the palace.

It was an immense bonfire, at which the Parisians were
roasting the different joints of the horse they had killed.

The night was tolerably tranquil. The Assembly con-
tinued its sitting till three o'clock in the morning.

At three o'clock, and before the members separated,
they sent two of their ushers, who took a round through
Versailles, visited the environs of the palace, and then
went round the park.

All was, or all appeared to be, quiet.

The queen had wished to leave the palace by the gate
which communicated with Trianon, but the National
Guards had refused to allow her to joass.

She had alleged her fears, and she had been answered
that she was safer at Versailles than she could be else-
where.

She had, in consequence, retired to her apartments ; and
she, in fact, felt reassured when she saw that she was pro-
tected by the most faithful of her guards.

At her door she had found George de Charny. He was
armed, and leaning upon the small musketoon used by the
guards as well as the dragoons. This was unusual ; the
guards in the interior of the palace stood sentry with their
sabers only.

On perceiving him, the queen went up to him.

" Ah I it is you, baron," she said.

"Yes, madame."

"Always faithful."

" Am I not at my post ?"

" AVho placed you here ?"

"My brother, madame."

" And where is your brother ?"

"He is with the king."

" And why with the king ? "

** Because he is the head of the familv," he said, "and

492 TAKING THE BASTILE.

in that capacity has a right to die for the king, who is the
head of the state."

** Yes," said Marie Autoiuctte, with a certain degree of
bitterness, •* while you have only the right of dying for
the queen."

'* That would he great happiness for nie," said the
yonng man, bowing, " should God ever permit me to ful-
fil that duty."

The queen made a step to withdraw, but a suspicion Wiis
gnawing at her heart.

She stopi"»ed, and, half turning her head :

'' And — the countess," she inquired, " what has become
of her ? "

" The countess, madame, came in about ten minutes
since, and she has ordered a bed to be prepared for her in
your majesty's antechamber."

The queen bit her lips.

Whenever she had occasion to make inquiry with regard
to any of the De Charny family, she M'as always sure to
find that they were rigidly attending to their duties, be
they what they might.

" Thanks, sir," said the queen, with a charming gesture
of the head and hands at the same time, " thanks for your
watching so carefully over the queen. You will, in my
name, thank your brother for watching over the king so
carefully,"

And after saying this she went to her ovi^n room. In
the ante-chamber she found Andrce, not lying down, but
still sitting up and respectfully awaiting her return.

She could nut prevent Iierself from holding out her hand
to her.

** I have just been tlianking your brother-in-law, George,
countess," she said, "and I told him to thank your hus-
band, and I now thank you, in turn."

Andree made a low courtesy, and stood aside to allow
the queen to pass, who then went into her bedroom.

Tlie queen did not tell her to follow her. This devoted-
ness, from which she felt affection was withdrawn, and
which, however icy cold it might be, she knew would exist
till death, weiglied heavily upon her feelings.

As we have before said, at three in the morning every-
thing was quiet in tlic palace at Versailles.

Gilbert had left it with M. de Lafayette, who had been

TAKING THE BASTILE. 493

on horseback for twelve hours, and who was so mnch
fatigued that he could scarcely stand. On leaving the
palace he met Billot, who had accompanied the National
Guards. He had seen Gilbert set off ; he had thought
that Gilbert might have occasion for him at Versailles, and
he had, therefore, followed him like a dog who runs to
rejoin his master who had left the house without him.

The Assembly, reassured by the report made to it by its
ushers, had adjourned.

- It was hoped that this tranquillity would not be disturbed
daring the niglit.

But they had calculated wrongly.

In almost all popular movements, by which great revolu-
tions are prepared, there is a pausing time, during which
people believe that all is terminated, and tliat they may
sleep quietly.
■ They deceive themselves.

Behind the men who made the first commotion, there
are others who are awaiting the completion of this first
movement, calculating that the first, either from fatigue
or being satisfied, do not desire to proceed further, and
therefore repose.

It is then that in their turn these unknown men, the
mysterious agents of fatal passions, glide darkly in the
shade, take up the movement where it had been abandoned,
and urge it onward to its utmost limits : and when they
awake those who had opened out the way to them and
had laid down half-way on the road, believing that their
journey was performed, that the end was gained, they are
terrified at the frightful progress which has been made.

There was a very different impulsion during this terrible
night, and given by two troops wliich had arrived at Ver-
sailles— the one in the evening, the other during the night.

The first had come because it was hungry, and it asked
for bread.

The second had come from hatred, and asked for venge-
ance.

We know who it was led on the first — Maillard and La-
fayette.

But now. who was it that led on tlie second ? Ilistory
mentions not tlieir names j but as history has failed in this,
tradition names :

Marat.

494 TAKING THE BASTILE.

We already know him ; we have seen him at the f^tes
given at the time of the marriage of Marie Antoinette,
cutting oil legs and arms on the Place Louis XV. ; we have
seen him in the square before the Hotel de Ville, urging
on the citizens.

At length, we see him gliding along in the night, like
those wolves wlio prowl along the sheep-folds, waiting until
the shepherds shall be asleep, to venture on their sanguin-
ary work.

Verriere.

As to this one, we have mentioned his name for the first
time. He was a deformed dwarf, a hideous hunchback,
but whose legs appeared immeasurably long in proportion
to his body. At every storm which disturbed the depths of
society, this sanguinary monster was seen to rise with scum
and agitate himself uj)on its surface. Two or three times
during the most terrible tumults he was seen passing
through Paris huddled upon a black charger, and similar
to one of the figures in the Apocalypse, or to one of those
inconceivable demons to which tlie pencil of Callot has
given birth in his jDicture of the temptations of St. An-
thony.

One day at a club, and mounted on the table, he was
attacking, threatening, and accusing Danton. It was at
the period when the popularity of the man of the 2d of
September was vacillating. Danton felt tliat this venomous
attack of Verri(^re would altogether complete his ruin.
He felt that he was lost — lost like the lion who perceives
the hideous head of a serpent at two inches from his lips.
He looked around him, seeking either a weapon or some
one to back him. Fortunately, he caught sight of another
little hunchback ; he immediately caught him under the
arms, raised him ami placed him upon the table immediately
opposite his hump-backed brother.

" My friend," said he to him, " reply to that gentleman ;
I yield tlie floor to yon."

The whole assembly roared with laughter, and Danton
was saved — for that time, at least.

There were then, according to tradition, Marat, Verri(^re,
and besides them,

The Duke d'Aiguillon.

The Duke d'Aiguillon ; that is to say, one of the most
inveterate enemies of the queen.

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 495

The Duke d^Aiguillon disguised as a woman.

And who was it said this ? Everybody.

The Abbe Delille and the Abbe Maury, these two abbes
who so little resemble each other.

To the first was attributed the famous line ;

" As a man, he's a coward ; as a woman, an assassin.*'

As to the Abbe Maury, that is another affair.

A fortnight after tlie occurrence of the events we are
relating, the Duke d'Aiguillou met him on the terrace of
the Feuillans and was about to accost him.

'' Keep on your way, strumpet ! " said the Abbe Maury,
and he majestically left the duke perfectly astounded.

It was, therefore, said that these three men, Marat,
Verriere, and the Duke d'Aiguillon arrived at Versailles
at about four o'clock in the morning.

They were leading the second troop of which we have
spoken.

It was composed of men who follow in the wake of those
who combat to conquer.

They, ou the contrary, come to pillage and to assas-
sinate.

They had undoubtedly assassinated a little at the Bastile,
but they had not pillaged at all.

Versailles offered a delightful compensation.

About half-past five in the morning the palace was star-
tled from its sleep.

A musket-shot had been fired in the marble courtyard.

Five or six hundred men had suddenly presented them-
selves at the gate, and exciting, animating, pushing on one
another, some of theni had climbed over the railings,
while the others, by a united effort, at length forced open
the gate.

It Avas then that a shot fired by the sentinel had given
the alarm.

One of the assailants fell dead. His bleeding corpse
was stretched upon the pavement.

Tliis shot had divided this group of pillagers, whose aim
was to obtain possession of tiie plate in the palace, and
that of some of them, perhaps, to seize upon the king's
crown.

Separated as by tlie blow of an immense hatchet, the
crowd is divided into two groups.

One of the groups goes to attack the queen's apartments,

496 TAKING THE BASTILE.

the other ascends toward the chapel — that is to say, toward
the apartments of the king.

Let us first follow the one proceeding toward the king's
apartments.

You have seen the waves rising when a higli tide is
setting in, have you not ? Well, then, the popular wave
is similar to it — with this sole difference, that it keeps on
advancing without receding.

The whole of the king's guards at that moment consisted
of a sentinel who was guarding the door, and an officer
who rushed precipitately out of the ante-chamber, armed
with a halberd which he had snatched from the hand of a
terrified Swiss.

"Who goes there ? " cried the sentinel, "who goes
there ? "

And as no answer was given, and as the flood of men
still ascended :

" Who goes there ? " he cried for the third time.

And he leveled his musket.

The officer feels at once what would be the result of a
shot fired in the apartments, he strikes up the sentinel's
gun, and rushing toward the assailants, he places his hal-
berd across the top of the staircase, thus completely pre-
venting any one from passing.

" Gentlemen, gentlemen ! " cried he, '' what do you
want ? What do you require ? "

*' Nothing — nothing," said several voices ; " let us pass ;
we are good friends of his majesty."

" You are good friends of his majesty, and you make
war on him ? "

This time there was no answer — a laugh and nothing
else.

A man seized the stock of the halberd that the officer
would not leave go of. To make him quit his hold, the
man struck his hand.

The officer snatched the halberd from the hands of his
adversary, grasped the oaken stock with both of his, and
dealing his adversary a blow on the head with all his
strength, broke his skull.

The violence of the blow broke the halberd in two.

The officer, consequently, had two arms instead of
one — a stick and a poniard.

He whirled the stick round — struck with the poniard.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 497

During this time the sentiy had opened the door of the
ante-chamber, and called for assistance.

Five or six guards came out.

" Gentlemen ! gentlemen ! " said the sentinel, " assist
Monsieur de Charny."

The sabers sprung from the scabbards, glittered for an
instant in the light of the lamp which burned above the
staircase, and to the right and left of Charny furiously
attacked the assailants.

Cries of pain were heard, blood flowed, the wave of
people retreated down the steps, and showed them covered
with blood.

The door of the ante-chamber opened again, and the
sentinel cried :

"Enter, gentlemen, the king orders it."

The guards profited by this moment of confusion among
the crowd. Tliey rushed toward the door. Charny en-
tered last. The gate closes upon him, and the two large
bolts shoot into their places.

A thonsand blows are struck at once on the door. It
would hold good, however, for ten minutes.

Ten minutes ! during these ten minutes some assistance
might arrive.

Let us see what the queen is doing.

The second group has darted toward the small apart-
ments ; but the staircase is narrow — scarce two people can
pass at once.

George do Charny watches there.

At the third. Who goes there ? no answer — he fires.

At the sound of the report the queeir's door opens.

Andree comes out, pale but calm.

" What is it ? " asked she.

*' Madame," cried George, " save her majesty ; it is her
life they want ; I am opposed to a thousand, but I will
hold out as long as possible. Quick ! quick !" Then, as
the assailants precipitated tliemselves on him, he shut the
door, crying, "■ Draw the bolt ! draw the bolt ! I shall
live long enough to allow the queen to fly." And turning,
he pierced the two first he met in the corridor with his
bayonet.

Tlie queen had heard everything.

Two of her women, Mme. Tlogue and Mme. Thibault,
were dressing her. Then, half dressed, the two women

498 TAKING THE BASTILE.

conducted her through a corridor to the king ; while calm
and indifferent to lier own danger, Andree drew bolt after
bolt, as she followed the steps of Marie Antoinette.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Betwixt the two apartments a man waited for the queen.

This man was Cliarny.

" The king ! " cried Marie Antoinette, on seeing the
blood on the dress of the young man. " The king ! Mon-
sieur, you promised to save the king ! ''

"The king is saved, madame," replied Charny.

And looking toward the doors which tlie queen had left
open, in order to reach the (Eil de Bceuf,* where at this
time were assembled the queen, Mme. Eoyale,f the
dauphin, and a few guards, Cluirny was about to ask what
had become of Andree, when his eyes met those of the
queen.

This look stopped the question which was about to issue
from his lips.

But the queen's look had dived into the recesses of
Charny's heart.

There was no need for his speaking. Marie Antoinette
had divined his thought.

" She is coming," said the queen, " yon need not be un-
easy."

And she ran to the dauphin, and clasped him in her
-rms.

* The CEil fie BcBuf, which has so very frequently been men-
tioned in this book, liad a historical interest. It was an oval
room in the great palace of Versailles, and its history, comyiiled
recently by one of the most distinguished writers of France, com-
prises more pages tlian tlie annals of many a European kingdom.
In the coterie of the Regent Duke of Orleans, of Louis XV,, and
of the early days of the reign of Louis XVI., flourislied. and not
until tiie days of the Emperor Napoleon did it lo.se its prestige.
The scandalOf this room wasoneof the great causes wliich made
the whole of the bourgeoisie and middle classes of France so
cordialh' detest tlie old monarchy, and induced them to throw
the wh()le weight of their influence into the cause of the Revo-
lnt ion. Such .scenes a-s were enacted there made Lafayet te, Beau-
iianiais, De Romoeub. and cjtlier nobles use all their influence to
destroy a throne built up by crime, and with courtiers and
courtesans as its supi)orters.

+ The title given to the eldest daughters of the kings of France.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 499

Andree, immediately after this, closed the last door,
and ill her turn entered the room called the CEil de
Boenf.

Andree and Charny did not exchange a word.-

The smile of the one replied to the smile of the other,
and that was all.

Strange to say, these two hearts, which had so long been
severed, began to entertain feelings which responded to
each other.

During this time the queen looked around her, and as
if she felt delight in finding Charny in fault :

" The king," she inquired, " Mdiere is the king ? "

" The king is seeking for you, madame," tranquilly
replied Charny ; " he went to your apartment by one
corridor, while you were coming here by another."

At the same instant loud cries were heard in the adjoin-
ing room.

They were the assassins, who were vociferating, "Down
with the Austrian woman ! Down with the Messaline !
Down with the Veto ! She must be strangled ! She
must be hanged ! "

At the same time two pistol-shots were heard, and two
balls pierced through the door at different heights.

One of these balls passed only a quarter of an inch above
the head of the dauphin, and then buried itself in the op-
posite wainscoting.

" Oh ! my God ! my God ! " cried the queen falling
upon her knees.

The five or six guards, upon a sign made to them by
Charny, then placed themselves before tlie queen and the
two royal children, thus forming a rampart for them with
their bodies.

At that moment the kiiig appeared, his eyes full of tears,
his face pale as death ; he was calling for tlie queen, as the
queen had called for him.

lie perceived her, and threw himself into her arms.

''Saved ! saved ! " exclaimed the queen.

" By him, madame,'' cried the king, pointing to Charny,
*' and you are saved by him also, are you not ? "

" By his brother," replied the queen.

*' Sir," said Louis XVI. to the count, " we owe so much
to your family, so much that we shall never be able to repay
the debt."

500 TAKING THE BASTILE.

The queen's eyes met those of Andree, aud she turned
away her head, blushing deeply.

The blows of the assailants were heard endeavoring to
destroy the door.

" Come, gentlemen," said Charuy, *' we must defend
our position here for another hour. There arc^even of us,
aud it will take them full an hour to kill us if we defend
ourselves resolutely. Before an hour elapses it will be
impossible that a reinforcement should not arrive to the
assistance of their majesties."

Saying these words, Charny seized a large press which
was staudiug in one of the corners of the royal room.

His example was instantly followed, and a heap of fur-
niture was piled up against the door, between which the
guards took care to leave loopholes, through which they
could fire on the assailants.

The qneen took her two children in her arms, and rais-
ing her hands above their heads, she prayed.

The children restrained their cries and tears.

The king went into the cabinet contiguous to the OEil
de Bwuf, in order to burn some valuable papers which he
did not wish to fall into the hands of the assassins.

The latter were attacking the door more desperately
than ever. At every instant, splinters were seen flying
before the blows given by a sharp hatchet, or wrenched
out by large pincers.

By the opening which had been thus made, pikes with
reddened points, bayonets reeking with blood were forced
through, attempting to hurl death on those within.

At the same time, the balls pierced the frame- work
above the barricades, and left long traces on the gilded
plaster of the ceiling.

At length a bench rolls from the top of the press ; the
press itself was partly damaged. One whole panel of the
door, which formed the front of the press, gave way, aud
they could sec, in the place of the bayonets and pikes,
arms covered with blood pass through it aud grasp the
sides of the opening, v/hich every moment became wider.

The guards had clischarged their last cartridge, and this
they had not done uselessly, for tlirough this increasing
opening could be seen the floor of the gallery covered with
the wounded and dead bodies.
, On hearing the shrieks of the women, who believed that

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 501

through this opening death was advancing npon them, the
king returned.

" Sire/' said Charny, '' shut yourself up with the queen
in the furthest room from this ; close every door after
you ; place two of us behind the doors. 1 demand to be
the last, and to guard the last door. I will answer for it
that we hold out two hours ; they have been more than
forty minutes in breaking through this one."

The king hesitated ; it appeared to him to be humiliat-
ing to fly thus from room to room, to entrench himself
thus behind every cupboard.

If the queen had not been there, he would not have
retreated a single step.

If the queen had not her children with her, she would
have remained as firmly as the king.

But alas ! poor human beings, kings or subjects, we
have always in our hearts some secret opening by which
courage escapes and terror enters.

The king was about to give the order to fly to the re-
motest room, when suddenly the arms were withdrawn,
the pikes and bayonets disappeared, the shouts and
threats at once ceased.

A general silence ensued, every one remaining with
distended lips, eagerly listening ears, and suppressed res-
piration.

Then they heard the measured steps of regular troops
advancing.

" They are the National Guards !" cried Charny.

*' Monsieur de Charny ! " cried a voice, and at the same
time the well-known face of Billot appeared at the opening.

" Billot ! " cried Charny, *' is it you, my friend ? "

*' Yes, yes, 'tis I," replied the honest farmer, "and the
king and queen, where are they ? "

" They are here."

"Safe and sound ?"

"Safe and sound."

''May God be praised I This way, Monsieur Gilbert, this
way !" cried he, in his stentorian voice.

At the name of Gilbert, the hearts of two women bounded
with very dilTerent feelings.

The lieart of the queen and the heart of Andrce.

Charny turned rouiul instinctively. He saw both Andree
and the queen turn pale at this name.

50:} TAKING THE BASTILE.

He shook liis head, and sighed.

'• Open tlie door, gentlemen," said the king.

The guards hastened to obey his orders, throwing aside
the roniains of the barricade.

During tliis time the voice of Lafayette avus heard cry-
ing :

*^ Gentlemen of the National Guard of Paris, I hist
night pledged my word to the king tliat no injury should
be done to any one belonging to his majesty, if you allow
his guards to be massacred, you will make me forfeit my
■word of honor, and I shall no longer be worthy to be your
chief."

When the door was opened, the two persons first per-
ceived were General Lafayette and Gilbert ; a little to
their left stood Billot, perfectly delighted at the share he
had taken in the king's deliverance.

It was Billot who had gone to awaken Lafayette.

Behind Lafayette, Gilbert, and Billot was Captain Gou-
dran, commanding the company of the center St. Phillippe
de Roule.

Mme. Adelaide was the first who rushed forward to greet
Lafayette, and throwing her arms round his neck M'itli .all
the gratitude of terror :

"Ah, sir!" she exclaimed, ''it is you who have
saved us."

Lafayette advanced respectfully, and was about crossing
the threshold of the (Eil de Boeuf, when an officer stopped
his progress.

" Your pardon, sir," said he to him, ''' but have you
right of admission ?"

'' If he have not," said the king, holding out his hand
to Lafayette, " I give it to him."

''Long live the king! long live the queeu ! " cried
Billot.

The king turned toward him.

" That is a voice I know," said he, smiling.

"You are very kind, sire," replied the worthy farmer.
" Yes, yes ; you heard that voice on the journey to Paris.
Ah ! had you but remained in Paris instead of returning
here ! "

The queen knit her brows.

"Yes," she said, "since you Parisians are so very
amiable."

TAKING THE BASTILE. . 503

"Well, sir," said the king to M. de Lafa3^etto,, as if he
had been asking him. '' In your opinion, what ought now
to be done ? "

''Sire," respectfully rejDlied M. de Lafayette, "I think
it would be well that your majesty should show yourself
on the balcony,"

The king asked Gilbert for his opinion, but merely by a
look.

Louis XVI. then went straight to the window, and with-
out hesitation opened it himself and appeared upon the
balcony.

A tremendous and unanimous shout burst from the
people.

" Long live the king !"

Then a second cry followed the first.

" The king to Paris ! "

Between these two cries, and sometimes overwhelming
them, some formidable voices shouted :

"The queen ! the queen !"

At this cry everybody shuddered ; the king turned pale,
Charny turned pale, even Gilbert himself turned pale.

The queen raised her head.

She was also pale, but with compressed lips and frown-
ing brow ; she was standing near the window. Mme.
Royale was leaning against her. Before her was the dau-
phin, and on the fair head of the child reclined her con-
vulsively clinched hand, white as the purest marble.

" The queen ! the queen ! " reiterated the voices, be-
coming more and more formidable.

" The people desire to see you, madame," said Lafayette.

*' Oh ! do not go, my mother ! " said Mme. Royale, in
great agony, and throwing her arms round the queen^s neck.

The queen looked at Lafayette.

*' Fear nothing, madam," said he to her.

" What ! " she exclaimed, " and quite alone ? "

Lafayette smiled, respectfully, and with the delightful
manner which he retained even to his latest days, ho took
the two children from their mother and made them first
ascend the balcony.

Then, offering liis hand to the queen :

" If vour majesty will deign to confide in me," said he,
** I will be responsible for all.'*

And he conducted the queen on to the balcony.

504 TAKING THE BASTILE.

It was a terrible spectacle, aud one likely to canse the
vertigo. For the marble courtyard was transformed into
a human sea full of roaring waves.

*' At the sight of the queen an immense cry was nttered
by the whole of this crowd, and no one could have been
positive whether it was a cry of menace or of joy.

Lafayette kissed the queen's hand, then loud applause
burst forth.

In the noble French nation there is, even in the veins of
the lowest born, chivalric blood.

The queen breathed more freely.

Then, suddenly shuddering :

" And my guards, sir," said she, " my guards, who have
saved my life, can you do nothing for them ?"

" Let me have one of them, madame,"' said Lafayette.

"Monsieur de Charny I Monsieur de Cliarny!" cried
the queen.

But Charny withdrew a step or two ; he had understood
what was required of him.

He did not wish to make an apology for the evening of
the Ist of October.

Not having been guilty, he required no amnesty.

Andree, on her side, was impressed with the same feei-
ng. She had stretched out her hand to Charny for the
purpose of preventing him.

Her hand met the hand of the count, and these two
hands were pressed within each other.

The queen had observed this, notwithstanding she had
so much to observe at that moment.

Her eyes flashed fire, and with a palpitating heart and
broken accents :

" Sir," said she to another guai'd, ** sir, come here, I
command you."

The guard obeyed.

Tie had not, moreover, the same motives for hesitating
as Charny had.

M. de Lafayette drew the guard on to the balcony, and
taking his own tricolored cockade from his hat, placed it
in that of the guard, after which ho embraced bim.

"Long live Lafayette! long live the body-guard!"
shouted fifty thousand voices.

Some few wisliod to utter some hollow growlings, the
last threat of the disappearing tempest.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 505

But they were overwhelmed by the universal acclama-
tion.

" Come," said Lafayette, " all is ended, and fine
weather has returned."

Then, stepping into the room :

"But that it should not again be overcast, sire, there
still remains a sacrifice for you to make."

"Yes," said the king, pensively, "to leave Versailles,
is it not ? "

" And come to Paris — yes, sire."

" Sir," said the king, *'you may announce to the peo-
ple that at one o'clock I, the queen, and my children, will
set out for Paris."

Then, turning to the queen :

"Madame," said he, "you had better retire to your
own apartment, and prepare yourself."
' This order of the king appeared to remind Charny of an
event of importance which he had forgotten.

He rushed from tlie room, preceding the queen.

" Wliy are you going to my apartment, sir ?" said the
queen, harshly, to him ; " you have no need to go there."

"I earnestly trust it may be so, madame," replied
Charny ; " but be not uneasy ; if really I am not needed
there, I shall not remain long enough to cause my pres-
ence to be disi)leasing to your majesty."

The queen followed him ; traces of blood stained the
floor, and the queen saw them. She closed her eyes, and
seeking an arm to guide her, she took that of Charny, and
walked some steps in this way as a blind person.

Suddenly she felt that every nerve in Charny's body
shuddered.

" ^yhat is the matter, sir ?" she said, opening her eyes.

Then, suddenly ;

" A dead body ! a dead body ! " she exclaimed.

" Your majesty will excuse my withdrawing my arm,"
said he. " I have found tliat which 1 came to seek in
your apartment — the dead body of my brother George."

It was, in fact, tlie dead body of the unfortunate young
man, whom his brother had ordered to allow himself
to be killed rather than that the queen should be ap-
proached.

He had punctually obeyed.

22 — Dumas — Yoi.. IX.

50G TAKING THE BASTILE.

CHAPTER XXV.

TiTE circumstances wo have just related have been re-
counted in a hundred different ways ; for they were cer-
tainly the most interesting which occurred in the great
period between 1789 and 1795, and which is called tlie
French Revolution.

They will be related in a hundred various ways still ;
but we can affirm beforehand, that no one will relate them
witli more impartiality than we do.

But of what service will all these narratives be, how-
ever true they are ? Did ever a political lesson j^rove
instructive to a political man ?

No ; queens have wept : no ; kings have been murdered,
and yet their successors have never profited by the cruel
lesson which fate had given them.

Faitliful subjects have been prodigal of their devoted-
ness, without those whom fatality had destined to misfor-
tune having derived any advantage from it.

Alas ! we have seen the queen almost stumble over the
body of one of those men whom kings, when they dejiart,
leave bleeding upon the road which they have traversed
in their fall.

A few hours after the cry of terror which the queen
had uttered, and at the moment when, with the king and
her chiltlren, she was about to leave Versailles, Avhere she
was never to return, the following scene took place in an
interior courtyard, damp from the rain, and which a
sharp autumnal wind had begun to dry.

A man dressed in black was leaning over a dead body.

A man dressed in the uniform of the Royal Guards was
kneeling on the opposite side of this body.

At three paces from them a third person was standing,
with clasped hands and fixed eyes, gazing intently at
them.

The dead body was that of a young man of from twenty-
two to twenty-three years of age, the whole of Avhose blood
appeared to have escaped through large wounds in his
head and chest.
-His chest was scarred with frightful gashes, the skin

TAKING THE BASTILE. 507

surrounding them was of a livid white ; it appeared still
to heave with the disdainful breathings of a hopeless de-
fense.

His half-opened mouth, his head tlirown back with an
expression of pain and auger, recalled to the mind the
beautiful statue of the dying gladiator.

" And life, with a long groan, fled to the abode of
shadows. "

The man dressed in black was Gilbert.

Tlie officer on his knees was the Count de Charny.

The man standing near them was Billot.

The corpse was that of the Baron George de Charnj^

Gilbert, loaning over the bodj^ gazed at it with that
sublime intentness which, with tlie dying, retains life
wlien about to escape, and, with the dead, almost recalls
the soul which has taken flight.

" Cold, stiff — he is dead — positively dead !'' said he, at
length.

The Count de Charny uttered a hoarse groan, and press-
ing,in his arms the insensible body, burst into sobs so
heartrending that the doctor shuddered and Billot ran to
hide his head in a corner of the small courtyard.

Then, suddenly, the count raised the body, placfed it
against the wall, and slowly withdrew, still looking at it
as if he expected that his dead brother would become re-
animated and follow him.

Gilbert remained still kneeling on one knee, his head
reclining on his hand, pensive and motionless.

Billot then left his dark corner and went up to Gilbert ;
he no longer heard the count's sobs, which had torn his
heart.

"Alas ! alas ! Monsieur Gilbert,'* said he, "this, then,
is really what we have to expect in civil war, and that
which you predicted to me is now happening — only it is
happening sooner than I expected, and even sooner than
yon yourself expected. I saw these villains murdering
unworthy people ; and now I see these villains murdering
honest people. I saw them massacre Flesselles ; I saw
them massacre Monsieur de Launay ; I saw Foulon mas-
sacred ; I saw Berthier massacred. I then shuddered iu
every limb, and I felt a horror for all men."

" And yet the men they wer« then killing were miserable
wretches."

508 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" It was then, Monsieur Gilbert, that yon predicted the
time would come when they would kill honest people."

"They have killed the Bavon de Chaniy. I no longer
shudder — I weep ; I have no longer a liorror of others —
I fear I mav resemble them."

"Billot!" cried Gilbert.

But without listening, Billot continued :

"Here is a young man whom they have assassinated,
Monsieur Gilbert. lie was a mere boy, he was fairly com-
bating, he was not assassinating, but he has been assas-
sinated."

Billot heaved a sigh, which seemed to issue from the
bottom of his heart.

"Ah! the unhappy youth," he cried. "I knew him
when he was a child. I have seen him pass by when he
was going from Boursonne to Villers-Cotterets on his little
gray pony ; he was carrying bread to the poor from his
mother.

" He was a beautiful boy, with a fair, rosy complexion,
and large blue eyes ; he was always smiling. Well, it is
very extraordinary, since I saw him stretched out there,
bloody and disfigured, it is not a corpse that I behold in
him, but always the smiling child of former days, carrying
a basket in his left hand and a purse in his right.

"Ah ! Monsieur Gilbert, in truth I believe I have now
had enough of it, and do not desire to see anything more ;
for you predicted tliis to me. The time will come when
I shall also see you die, and then "

Gilbert gently shook his head.

" Billot," said he, " be calm; my hour has not yet come."

" Be it so ; but mine has come, doctor. I have a harvest
down yonder which has rotted, fields that are lying fallow,
a family whom I love ten times more dearly on seeing this
dead body, whose family are weopiTig for him."

" What do you mean to say, my dear liillot ? Do you
believe, perchance, that I am going to afflict myself about
you?"

" Oh, no ! " reiilicd Billot, ingenuously ; "but as I suf-
fer, I complain ; and as complaining leads to notliing, I
calculate on alleviating my own sniferings in my own wav."

" Whifh means to sivy that "

" It means that I desire to return to my farm. Monsieur
Gilbert."

TAKING THE BASTILE. ' 509

" Agaiu, Billot ?

** All ! Monsieur Gilbert, there is a voice down yonder
which is calling for me."

'' Take care. Billot ; that voiceis advising you to desert.**

" lam not a soldier, and therefore, there is no desertion.
Monsieur Gilbert.

" What you are wishing to do would be a desertion far
more culpable than that of a soldier."

"Explain that to me, doctor."

" How you have come to Paris to demolish ; and you
would fly as soon as the building is falling."

" Yes, that I may not crush my friends."

" Or, rather, that you may not be crushed yourself."

"AVhy, why !" replied Billot, ''it is not forbidden that
a man should think a little of himself."

" Ah ! that is a magnificent calculation, indeed ; as if
stones did not roll, as if in rolling they did not crush, and
even at a distance, the timid men who would fly from
them."

"Oh ! yon are well aware that I am not a timid man.
Monsieur Gilbert."

" Then you will remain, Billot ; I have occasion for you
here."

"My family also stands in need of me down yonder."

Billot ! Billot ! I thought that you had agreed with
me that a man who loves his country has no family."

"I should like to know whether you would use the same
language, if Sebastian were there, there, lying as that
young man docs."

And he pointed to the dead body.

"Billot," replied Gilbert, in a hollow tone, "the day
will arrive when my son shall see me as I now see that
body."

" So much the worse for him, doctor, if on that day he
should be as calm as you are now."

" 1 hope that he will be a better man than I am. Billot,
and that he will be firmer still, and precisely because I
shall have given him an example of firmness."

" Then you would have the child accustom himself to
see blood flowing around him, that he should in his youth-
ful years acquire the habit of great conflat;rations, of gib-
bets and riotrf — attacks in the dark — tliat he should see
kings threatened, queens insulted, and then, when he has

510 TAKING THE BASTILE.

become as hard as his sword-blade, and quite as cold, yon
would still expect that he should love, that he should
respect you."

*' No, I would not have him see all that, Billot ; and
that is the reason for my sending him back to Villers-
Cotterets, and which I now almost regret.'*

" How ! You now regret it ? "

"Yes."

*' And why do you now regret ? "

"Because he would this day have seen exemplified the
axiom of the lion and the rat, which to him is but a
fable."

" What do you mean to say, Monsieur Gilbert ? "

" I say that he would have seen a poor farmer, whom
chance has brought to Paris, a brave and honest man, who
can neither read nor write, who never could have believed
that his life could have influenced, either for good or evil,-
the high destinies which he scarcely dared to raise his
eyes to — I say, that he would have seen that man who had
already, at one time, wished to leave Paris, as he again
wishes it — I say that he would have seen this man contri-
bute efficaciously to save the life of a king, a queen, and
two royal children."

Billot stared at Gilbert with astonished eyes.

" And how so. Monsieur Gilbert ? " says he.

*' How so, you sublimely ignorant fellow. I will tell
you how. By waking at the first noise that was made ;
by guessing that this noise was a tempest ready to burst
upon Versailles; by running to wake up Monsieur
Lafayette — for Monsieur Lafayette was asleep."

*' Zounds ! that was perfectly natural, for he had been
twelve hours on horseback, and twenty-four hours that he
had not been in bed."

" By leading him to the palace," continued Gilbert ;
"and'by bringing him at once into the midst of the as-
sassins and crying, * Stop, wretches, here is the avenger ! ' "

" Well, now, that is really true— I did all that."

"Well, then, Billot, you 'see that this is a great com-
pensation. If you did not prevent this young man being
assassinated, you have perhaps prevented the assassination
of the king, the quoon, aiul the two children. Ungrate-
ful man ! and you ask to leave the service of the country
at the very moment when the country recompenses you."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 511

" But who will ever know what I have done, since I,
myself, even had no idea of it ? "

" You and I, Billot— and is not that enough ? "

Billot reflected for a moment, then, holding out his
rough hand to the doctor :

'' I declare you are right, Monsieur Gilbert," said he ;
" but you know that man is but a weak, egotistical, in-
constant creature. There is but you. Monsieur Gilbert,
who is firm, generous, and constant. What is it that has
made you so ?"

*' Misfortune," said Gilbert, with a smile, in which there
was more sorrow than in a sob.

"That is singular," said Billot; ''I had thought that
misfortune made men wicked."

" The weak— yes."

"And I should be unfortunate and become wicked."

''You may, perhaps, be unfortunate; but you will
never become wicked. Billot."

" Are you sure of that ? "

"I will answer for you."

*' h\ that case " said Billot, sighing.

*• In that case " repeated Gilbert.

*' Why, I will remain with you ; but more than once I
know I shall again be vacillating."

"And every time it happens. Billot, I shall be near
you to sustain your firmness."

" AVell, again I say, so be it," sighed the farmer.

Then, casting a "^last look on the body of the Baron
George de Charny, which the servants were about to re-
move on a bier :

" It matters not," said Billot, "he was a handsome boy,
that little George de Charny, on his little gray pony, with
a basket on his left arm and his purse in the other."

CHAPTER XXVI.

We have seen, under circumstances long anterior to
those we have now related, the departure of Pitou and
Sebastian Gilbert.

Our intention being, for the present, to abandon the
principal personages of our history, to follow thejtwo young

512 TAKING THE BASTILE.

travelers, we hope that onr readers will allow us to enter
iuto some details relating to their arrival at Villers-
Cotterets.

Gilbert had commissioned Pitou to go to the College
Louis le Grand and to bring Sebastian to him. For this
purpose they pnt Pitou into a hackney-coach, and as they
had confided Sebastian to Pitou, they confided Pitou to
the care of the coachman.

In about an hour the coach brought back Pitou ; Piton
brought back Sebastian.

Gilbert and Billot were waiting for them in an apart-
ment which they had taken in the Pue St. llonore, a little
above the Church of the Assumj^tion.

Gilbert explained to his son that he was to set out the
same evening with Pitou, and asked him whether he
would not be well pleased to return to the great woods he
80 much loved.

"Yes, father," replied the boy, " provided that you will
come to see me at Yillers-Cotterets, or that you allow me
to come to see you at Paris."

''You may be easy on that score, my child," replied
Gilbert, kissing his son's forehead ; "you know that now
1 shall never be happy when away from you."

As to Pitou, he colored with delight at the idea of
setting out the same evening.

He turned pale Avith happiness when Gilbert placed,
within one of his, both Sebastian's hands, and in the other
ten double louis, of the value of forty-eight livres each.

A long series of instructions, almost all regarding the
health of his companion were given by the doctor to
Piton, to which he religiously listened.

Sebastian cast down his large eyes to conceal his tears.

Pitou was weighing and jingling his louis in his im-
mense pocket.

Gilbert gave a letter to Pitou, who was thus installed
in his functions, ^)ro frnu, of tutor.

This letter was for the Abbe Fortier.

Tlie doctor's harangue being terminated. Billot spoke
in his turn.

" Monsieur Gilbert," said he, " h:is confided to you the
health of Sebastian ; T will confide to you his personal
safety. Yon have a pair of stout fists ; in a case of need,
make good use of them."

TAKING THE BASTILE. ' 513

*'Yes," said Pitou ; ** and, besides them, I have a
saber."

" Do not make an abuse of that."

" I will be merciful," said Pitou ; " clemens ero."

" A hero, if you will," repeated Billot, but not intend-
ing to say it jeeringly.

''And now," said Gilbert, " I will point out to you the
way in which Sebastian should travel."

" Oh ! " cried Pitou, " it is only eighteen leagues from
Paris to Villers-Cotterets ; we will talk all the way, Se-
bastian and I."

Sebastian looked at his father as if to ask him whether
it would be very amusing to talk during the journey of-
eighteen leagues witn Pitou.

Pitou caught this glance.

"We will speak Latin,' said he, "and we shall be
taken for learned men."

This was the dream of his ambition, the innocent crea-
ture !

How many others, with ten double louis in their pockets,
would have said :

" We will buy gingerbrea...

Gilbert appeared for a moment to be in doubt.

He looked at Pitoii, then at Billot.

"1 understand you," said the latter ; "you are asking
yourself whether Pitou is a proper guide, and you hesitate
to confide your child to him."

" Oh ! " said Gilbert, " it is iiot to him that I confide
him."

" To whom, then ? "

Gilbert looked up to heaven ; he was still too much a
Voltairean to dare to reply :

" To God ! "

And the affair was settled. They resolved, in conse-
quence, without making any change in Pitou's plan,
which promised, without exposing him to too much fatigue,
a journey replete with amusement to Sebastian ; but it waa
decided they should not commence it until the following
morning.

Gilbert might have sent his son to Villers-Cotterets by
one of the public conveyances, which at that period were
running between Paris and the frontiers, or even in liia
own carriage ; but we know how much he feared the isola-

514: TAKING THE BASTILE.

tion of thought for young Sebastian, and nothing so much
isolates dreaming people as the motion and rumbling
noise of a carriage.

He, therefore, took the two young travelers as far as
Bourget, and then showing them the open road, on which
a brilliant sun was shining, and bordered by a double row
of trees, he embraced his son again, and opening his arms,
said :

''Xow go !"

Pitou, therefore, set off, leading Sebastian, who several
times turned round to blow kisses to his father, who was
standing, his arms crossed, upon the spot where he had
taken leave of his son. following him with his eyes, as if
he were following a dream.

Pitou raised himself to the full height of his extraordi-
nary stature. Pitou was very proud of the confidence
reposed in him by a person of Mr. Gilbert's importance,
one of the king's physicians-in-ordinary.

Pitou prepared himself scrupulously to fulfil the task
intrusted to him, which combined the functions of a tutor
and almost those of a governess.

Moreover, it was with full confidence in himself that he
was conducting little Sebastian ; he traveled very quietly,
passing through villages which were all in commotion and
terror since the events at Paris, which had only just oc-
curred ; for although we have brought up these events to
the 5th and Gtli of October, it must be remembered that
it was toward the end of July or the beginning of August
that Pitou and Sebastian left Paris.

Besides this, Pitou had retained his helmet for a head-
dress, and his long saber as a defensive weapon.

These were all that he had gained by the events of the
13th and 14th of July, but this twofold trophy satisfied
liis ambition, and by giving him a formidable air, at tho
same time sufficed for his safety.

Moreover, this formidable air, to whicli indubitably the
helmet and dragoon's saber greatly concurred, Pitou had
acquired it independently of them. A man has not as-
sisted in taking the Bastile, ho has not even merely been
present at it, without having retained something heroio
in his deportment.

Pitou had, in addition to this, become somewhat of an
advocate.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 516

No one could have listened to the resolutions passed at
the Hotel de Villa, to the orations of M. Bailly, the ha-
rangues of M. de Lafayette, without becoming somewhat
of an orator ; above all, if he has already studied the Latin
Condones, of which French eloquence at the close of the
eighteenth century was rather a pale though a tolerably
correct imitation.

Furnished with these two powerful modes of argument,
to which two vigorous fists were no mean adjuncts, and,
possessing a rare amenity of smile and a most interesting
appetite, Piton journeyed on agreeably toward Villers-
Cotterets.

For the curious in politics he had news, besides which
he could manufacture them in case of need, having resided
in Paris, where, from that period, their fabrication has
been always remarkable.

He related how M. Berthier had left immense buried
treasures, which the government would some day manage
to dig up. How M. de Lafayette, the paragon of all glory,
the pride of provincial France, was no longer considered
in Paris but as a half-used-up doll, whose white horse was
a fertile subject for the concoction of jests and caricatures.
How M. Bailly, whom M. de Lafayette honored with his
most intimate friendship, as well as all tlie members of
his family, was an aristocrat, and that scandalous people
said even worse things of him.

When he related all this, Pitou raised tempests of anger
against him, but he possessed the qnos ego of all these
storms. He would then relate unpublished anecdotes of
the Austrian woman.

His inexhaustible fancy procured for him an uninter-
ru])ted succession of excellent repasts, until he arrived at
Vauciennes, the last village on the road before reaching
Villors-Cotterets.

As Sebastian, on the contrary, ate little or nothing — as
he did not sjoeak at all — as he was a pale and sickly look-
ing youth, every one who felt interested for Sebastian
admired the vigilant and paternal care of Pitou toward
him, who caressed, cosseted, attended on the boy, and
into the bargain, ate his part of the dinners, without
seeming to have any other motive than that of being
agreeable to him.

When they arrived at Vauciennes, Pitou appeared to

516 TAKING THE BASTILE.

hesitate ; lie looked at Sebastian, Sebastian looked at
Pitou.

Pitou scratched his head. This was his mode of ex-
pressing his einbarrassuieiit.

Sebastian knew enough of Pitou to be aware of this
peculiarity.

**Well, what is the matter, Pitou ?*' asked Sebastian.

''The matter is, that if it were the same thing to you,
and if you wore not too tired, instead of continuing our
way straight on, we would return to Villers-Cotterets
through Haramont."

And Pitou, honest lad, blushed while expressing this
wish, as Catherine would have blushed when expressing a
less innocent desire.

Sebastian at once understood him.

"Ah, yes !" said he ; '' it was there our poor mother,
Piton, died."

'• Come, my brother, come ! ''

Pitou pressed Sebastian to his heart with an energy that
almost suffocated him, and taking the boy's band, he be-
gan running down the cross-road, which leads along the
valley of Wuala, and so rapidly, that, after going a hun-
dred paces, poor Sebastian was completely out of breath
and was obliged to say :

'' Too fast, Pitou, too fast ! "

Pitou stopped ; he had not perceived that he was going
too fast, it being his usual pace.

He saw that Sebastian was pale and out of breath.

lie took him on his shoulders and carried him.

In this way Pitou might walk as fast as he pleased.

As it was not the first time that Pitou had carried
Sebastian, Sebastian made no objection.

They thus reached Largny. There Sebastian, feeling
that Pitou was panting, declared that he had rested long
enough, and that he was ready to walk at any pace th-it
might suit Pitou.

Pitou, being full of magnanimity, moderated his pace.

Half an hour after this, Pitou was pt the entrance of
Haramont, the pretty village where he first saw the light,
as says the romance of a great poet — a romance, the music
of which is of more value than the words.

When they reached it, the two boys cast a look around
them to discover their old haunts.

TAKING THE BASTILE, * 517

The first tiling which they ijerceived was the crucifix
which popular piety habitually places at the entrance to
all villages.

Alas ! even at Ilaramont they felt the strange progres-
sion which Paris was making toward atheism. The nails
which fastened the right arm and the feet of the figure of
Christ had broken off from rust having eaten through
them. The figure was hanging suspended only by the
left arm, and no one had had the pious idea of replacing
the symbol of that liberty, that equality, that fraternity
which every one was in those days preaching.

Pitou was not devout, but he had the traditions of his
childhood. That this holy symbol should have been thus
neglected, wounded him to the heart. He searched the
hedges for one of those creeping plants which are as thin
and as tenacious as iron wire, laid his helmet and his
saber on the grass, climbed up the cross, refastened the
arm of the divine martyr to it, kissed the feet, and de-
scended.

During this time Sebastian was praying on his knees at
the foot of the cross. For whom was he praying ? Who
can tell ?

Perhaps for that vision of his childhood which he fondly
hoped once more to find beneath the great trees, for that
unknown mother who is never unknown, for if she has
not nourished us from her breast, yet is she still our
mother.

His holy action being accomplished, Pitou replaced his
helmet on his head and replaced his saber in his belt.

When Sebastian had concluded his prayer, he made the
sign of the cross, and again took Pitou's hand.

Both of them, then, entered the village, and advanced
toward the cottage in which Pitou had been born, in which
Sebastian had been nursed.

Pitou knew every stone in Haramont, and yet he could
not find the cottage. He was obliged to inquire what had
become of it, and the person he applied to showed him a
small house built of stone, with a slated roof.

The garden of this house was surrounded by a wall.

Aunt Angelique had sold her sister's house, and the new
proprietor, liaving full right to do so, had pulled down
everything — the old M'alls, wliich had again beccnne dust
— the old door, with a hole cut in it to allow ingress to the

518 TAKING THE BASTILE.

cat — the old windows, with tlieir panes half glass, half
paper, upon wliicli had appeared in strokes the elementary
lessons Piton had received in writing — the thatched roof
with its green moss, and the plants which had grown and
blossomed on its summit. Tlie new proprietor had pulled
down all this — all liad disappeared.

The gate was closed, and lying on the threshold was a
big black dog, who showed his teeth to Pitou.

"Come," said Pitou, the tears starting from his eyes,
" let us be gone, Sebastian. Let us go to a place where at
least I am sure that nothing will have changed."

And Pitou dragged Sebastian to the cemetery where his
mother had been buried.

He was right, the poor boy ! There, nothing had been
changed ; only the grass had grown ; it grows so rapidly
in cemeteries that there was some chance even that he
would not be able to recognize his mother's grave. For-
tunately, at the same time that the grass had grown, a
branch of a weeping-willow which Pitou had planted had,
in three years, become a tree. He went straight to the
tree and kissed the earth which it overshadowed, with the
same instinctive piety with which he had kissed the feet
of the figure of Christ.

When he rose from the ground, he felt the branches of
the willow, agitated by the wind, waving around his head.

He then stretched out his arms, and clasping the
branches, pressed them to his heart.

It was as if he was holding the hair of his mother, which
he was embracing for the last time.

Tlie two youths remained a considerable time by the
side of this grave, and evening was approaching.

It was necessary that they should leave it, the only thing
that appeared to have any remembrance of Pitou.

"When about to leave it, Pitou for a moment had the
idea of breaking oflf a slip of the willow and placing it in
his helmet ; but just when he was raising his hand to do
80, he paused.

It appeared to him that it would be giving pain to his
poor mother to tear off a branch from a tree, tlie roots of
which, perhaps, were intwined round the decaying deal
CofTin in wliich her remains reposed.

He again kissed the ground, took Sebastian by the hand,
and left the cemetery.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 519

All the inhabitants of the village were either in the fields
or in the woods ; few persons, therefore, had seen Pitou ;
and, disguised as he was by his helmet and his long saber,
among those persons no one had recognized him.

He, therefore, took the road to Villers-Cotterets, a de-
lightful road, which runs through tlie forest for nearly
three quarters of a league without any living or animated
object thinking of diverting his grief.

Sebastian followed, mute and pensive as himself.

They arrived at Villers-Cotterets at about five in the
afternoon.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Pitou arrived at Villers-Cotterets by that part of the
park which is called the Pheasantry. He walked across
the dancing-place, always abandoned during the week, and
to which he had, three weeks previously, conducted
Catherine.

What a number of things had happened to Pitou and to
France during those three weeks !

Then, having followed the long avenue of chestnut-trees,
he reached the square before the chdteau, and knocked at
the back door of the college presided over by the Abb6
Fortier.

It was full tliree years since Pitou had left Ilaramont,
while it was only three weeks since he had left Villers-
Cotterets. It was, therefore, very natural that he should
not have been recognized at Haramont, and that he should
have been recognized at Villers-Cotterets.

In a moment a rumor ran through the town that Pitou
had returned there with young Sebastian Gilbert ; that
both of them had gone into the house of the Abbe For-
tier ; that Sebastian looked much the same as when he had
left them, but that Pitou had a helmet and a long sword.

Tlie result of this was that a great crowd had assembled
at the ]n-incipal gate ; for they calculated that if Pitou
had gone into the chateau by tlie small private door, he
would come out of it by the great gate in the Rue de Sois-
8ons.

This was his direct road for going to the Plenx.

In fact, Pitou remained at the Abbe Forticr's only long

520 TAKING THE BASTILE.

enough to deliver into the hands of the abba's sister the
letter from the doctor, the young lad himself, and five
double louis destined to pay his board.

The Abbe Fortier's sister was at first mrch terrified
when she saw so formidable a soldier advancing through
the garden ; but soon, beneath the dragoon's helmet, she
recognized the placid and honest face of Pitou, which
somewhat tranquilized her.

And, finally, the sight of the five double louis reassured
her altogetlier.

This terror of the poor old maid can be the more readily
explained by informing our readers that the Abbe Fortier
had gone out with his pupils to give them a walk, and that
she was quite alone in the liouse.

Pitou, after having delivered the letter and the five
double louis, embraced Sebastian, and left the house, clap-
ping his helmet on his head with due military bravado.

Sebastian had shed some tears on separating from Pitou,
altliough the separation was not to be of long duration, and
notwithstanding tliat his society was not exceedingly amus-
ing ; but his hilarity, his mildness, his continued oblig-
ingness, had touched the heart of young Gilbert. Pitou
had the disposition of those fine great Newfoundland dogs,
who sometimes fatigue you very much, but who, in the
end, disarm your anger by licking your hand.

There was one thing which diminished Sebastian's grief,
which was that Pitou promised that he would often go to
see him. One thing diminished Pitou's regret, and this
was that Sebastian thanked him for his promise.

But now let us for awhile follow our hero from the
house of the Abbe Fortier to that of his aunt Angolique,
situated, as our readers already know, at the further end
of the Pleux.

On leaving the Abbe Fortier's house, Pitou found some
twenty persons who were waiting for liim. His strange
equipment, a description of which had been given through-
out the town, was in part known to those assembled. On
seeing him thus return from Paris, where so much fight-
ing was going on, they presumed that Pitou had been
fighting too, and they wished to hoar tlie news.

This news Pitou communicated with his accustomed
majesty. The taking of the Bastile, the exploits of M.
Billot and of M. Maillard, of MM. Elie and Ilulliu ; how

TAKING THE BASTILE. ' 521

Billot had fallen into tlie ditch of the fortress, and how he,
Pitou, had dragged him out of it ; finally, how they had
saved M. Gilbert, Avho, during six or seven days, had been
one of the prisoners confined there.

The auditors already knew the most of these details that
Pitou had related to them ; but they had read all these
details in the newspapers of the day, and, however faith-
ful the editor of a newspaper may be in his writings, he
always knows less than an ocular witness who relates the
incidents — who may be interrupted, and who resumes —
who may be questioned, and replies.

Now Pitou resumed, replied, gave all the details, show-
ing, when interrupted, the gi-eatest obligingness — in all
his answers, the greatest possible amenity.

The result of all this was that in about an hour's con-
versation at the door of the Abbe Fortier, in which he
gave a succinct narrative, the Eue de Soissons w^as crowd-
ed with auditors, when one of the persons present, observ-
ing some signs of anxiety in Pitou's countenance, took
upon himself to say :

''But he is fatigued, poor Pitou, and we are keeping
him here upon his legs, instead of allowing liim to go to
his aunt Angeliqae's house, poor, dear woman, who will
be so delighted at seeiug him again."

" It is not that I am fatigued," said Pitou, " but that I
am hungry. I have never been fatigued, but I am always
hungry.

Then, and in consequence of this ingenuous declaration,
the crowd, who highly respected the cravings of Pitou's
stomach, respectfully made way for him to pass, and Pitou,
followed by some persons more inveterately curious tlian
the rest, was permitted to wend his way to the Pleux —
that is to say, to the house of his aunt Angelique.

Aunt Angelique was not at home, and had gone doubt-
less to visit some neighbors, and the door was locked.

Several persons then invited Pitou to go to their houses
and take the nourishment he stood in need of ; but Pitou
proudly refused.

** But," said they to him, "you see, dear Pitou, that
your aunt's door is locked."

'' The door of an aunt cannot remain locked before an
obedient and hungry nephew," said Pitou, majestically.

And drawing his long saber, the sight of which made

523 ■ TAKING THE BASTILE.

men tuul children start back with aflfriglit, lie introduced
tlie point of it between the bolt and the staple of the lock,
gave a vigorous jerk, and the door flew open, to the great
admiration of all present, who no longer doubted the great
exploits of Pitou, since the}' saw him with so much audac-
ity expose himself to the auger of the ill-tempered old
maid.

The interior of the house was in precisely the same state
as when Pitou had left it. The famous leather armchair
royally held its state in the center of the room ; two or
three other mutilated chairs and stools formed the lame
court of the great armchair ; at the end of the room was
tlie kneading-trough ; on the right, the cupboard and the
chimney.

Pitou entered the house with a bland smile. He had no
quarrel with all these poor articles of furniture ; on the
contrary, they were the friends of his youth. They were,
it is true, almost as hard in their nature as Aunt Ange-
lique, but when they w^ere opened, there was something
good to be found in them ; while, had Aunt Angelique
been opened, her inside would certainly have been found
dryer and worse than her exterior.

Pitou, upon the instant, gave a proof of what we have
advanced, to the persons who had followed him, and who,
seeing what was going on, were waiting outside the house,
curious to see what would be the result when Aunt Ange-
lique should return home.

It was, moreover, very perceptible that all these persons
felt great sympathy for Pitou. We have said that Pitou
was hungry, so hungry that it had been perceived by tlie
change in his countenance.

Therefore, he lost no time ; he went straight to the
kneading-trough and cupboard.

In former times — we say former times, although scarcely
three weeks had elapsed since Pitou's departure ; for, iu
our opinion, time is to be measured, not by its duration,
but by the events which have occurred — in former times,
Pitou, unless urged on by the evil spirit, or by irresistible
hunger, both of them infernal powers and which much
resemble each other — in former times, Pitou would have
seated himself upon tlie threshold of the closed door, and
humbly waited the return of Aunt Angelique ; when she
had returned, would have bowed to her with a soft smile ;

TAKING THE BASTILE. " 523

then, standing aside, would have made room for her to
pass, would have followed her into the house, would liave
gone for a loaf and knife, that she might measure out his
portion to him ; then, his share being cut off, he would
have cast a longing eye, a single look, tearful and mag-
netic— he thought it so, at least — magnetic to such a
degree as to call forth the cheese or any other dainty from
the shelf of the cupboard.

An electricity which rarely succeeded, but which, how-
ever, sometimes did succeed.

But now, Pitou having become a man, no longer acted
thus ; he tranquilly raised the lid of the bread-trough,
drew from his pocket his long clasp-knife, took the loaf
and angularly cut off a slice which might have weighed a
good kilogramme (two pounds), as is elegantly said since
the adoption of the new-system weights.

Then he let fall the loaf into the trough again, and the
cover on the loaf.

After which, without allowing his equanimity to be at
all disturbed, he went to the cupboard.

It appeared to Pitou for an instant that he heard the
growing voice of Aunt Augelique ; but the cupboard door
creaked upon its liinges, and this noise, which had all the
power of reality, drowned the other, which had only the
influence of imagination.

At the time when Pitou was one of the household, the
avaricious aunt would provide only viands of a coarse de-
scription, such as Marolles cheese, or thin slices of highly
salted bacon, surrounded by the verdant leaves of an enor-
mous cabbage ; but since this fabulous devourer had left
the country, the aunt, in despite of her avarice, would
cook up for herself dishes that would last her a whole week,
but which were of a much more succulent description.

Sometimes it would be a good piece of beef a la mode,
surrounded by carrots and onions, stewed in the gravy :
sometimes a haricot of mutton with savory potatoes, big
as a child's liead, or long as cucumbers ; sometimes a calf's
foot, flavored with some shallots in vinegar, to give it more
piquancy ; sometimes it was a gigantic omelet made in the
great frying-pan and variegated with a quantity of chives
and parsley, or enameled with slices of bacon, one of wliich
sufficed for the dinner of tlie old woman, even on the days
when she had tlie greatest appetite.

524 TAKING THE BASTILE.

During the whole week, Aunt Angeliqne would, with
great disoretiou, eujoy the savory dish, making only such
breaches iu the precious morsel as the exigencies of the
moment required.

Each day did she rejoice in being alone to consume such
good things, and during the thrice happy week she thought
of her nephew, Ange Pitou, as often as she placed her
hand upon the dish or raised a mouthful to her lips.

Pitou was iu great good luck.

He had fallen upon a day — it was Monday — when Aunt
Angelique had cooked an old cock with rice, which had
boiled so long surrounded with its bland covering of paste,
that the bones had left the flesh and the flush had become
almost tender.

It was a formadable dish — it was served up in a deep,
wide porringer, Avhich, though black externally, was re-
splendent and attractive to the eye.

The meat was placed above the rice, looking like small
islands on the bosom of a vast lake, and the cock's comb,
rising above them all, looked like the crest of Ceuta in the
Straits of Gibraltar.

Pitou had not even the courtesy to utter one word of
admiration on seeing this great marvel.

Spoiled by good living, he forgot, the ungrateful fellow,
that such magnificence had never until then inhabited the
cupboard of Aunt Angelique.

lie held his great hunch of bread in his right hand.

He seized the vast dish in his left, and held it in equili-
brium by the pressure of his immense square thumb,
buried as far as the first joint in the unctuous mess, the
odor of which was grateful to his olfactory organs. At
this moment it appeared to Pitou that a shadow interposed
between the light of the doorway and himself.

He turned round smiling, for Pitou's was one of those
artless dispositions whose faces always give evidence of the
sati.sfaction of their hearts.

The shadow was the body of Aunt Angelique.

Of Aunt Angelique, more miserly, more crabbed, and
more skin and bone than ever.

In former days — we are obliged incessantly to return to
the same figure of speech — that is to say, to the coin])ara-
tive, as comparison alone can express our thought ; iu
former times, at the sight of Aunt Angelique, Pitou

TAKING THE BASTILE. 525

would have let fall the dish, and while Aunt Angelique
would liave bent forward in despair to pick up the frag-
ments of her fowl and the grains of rice, he would have
bounded over her head, and would have taken to his heels,
carrying off his bread under his arm.

But Pitou was no longer the same ; his helmet and his
saber had less changed him, physically speaking, than his
having associated with the great philosophers of the day
had changed him morally.

Instead of flying, terrified, from his aunt, he approached
her with a gracious smile, opened wide his arms — and al-
though she endeavored to escape the pressure, embraced
her with all his might, squeezing the old maid so energeti-
cally to his breast, while his hands, the one loaded with
the dish containing the fowl and rice, and the other with
the bread and knife, were crossed behind her back.

When he had accomplished this most nephew-like act,
which he considered as a duty imposed upon him, and
which it was necessary to fulfil, he breathed with all the
power of his vast lungs, and said :

*' Aunt Angelique, you may well be surprised, but it is
indeed your poor Pitou."

When he had clasped her so fervently in his arms, the
old maid imagined tbat, having been surprised in the very
act by her, Pitou had wished to suffocate her, as Hercules
in former days had strangled Antreus.

She, on her side, breathed more freely when she found
herself relieved from this dangerous embrace.

Only Aunt Angelique might have remarked that Pitou
had not even manifested his admiration of the dish he was
devouring.

Pitou was not only ungrateful, but he was also ill-
bred.

But there was one thing which disgusted Aunt Ange-
lique more than the rest ; and this was, that while she
would be seated in state in her leather armchair, Pitou
would not even dare to sit down on one of the dilapidated
chairs or one of the lame stools which surrounded it ; but,
instead of this, after having so cordially embraced her,
Pitou had very coolly ensconced himself in her own arm-
chair, had placed the dish between his knees, and was
leisurely devouring its contents.

In his powerful right hand he held the knife already

52C TAKING THE BASTILE,

mentioned, the blade of which was wide and long, a per-
fect spatula, with which Polyphemus himself might have
eateu his pottage.

In the other hand he held a bit of bread of thre£ lingers
wide and six inches long ; a perfect broom, with which lie
swept up the rice, while on its side the knife, in seeming
gratitude, pushed the meat upon the bread.

A learned, though pitiless maneuver, the result of which,
in a few minutes, was that it caused tlie blue and white of
the interior of the dish to become visible, as during the
ebbing tide we gradually perceive the rings and marks
upon the quays of a seaport.

We must renounce attempting to describe the frightful
perplexity and despair of Aunt Angelique.

At one moment she imagined that she could call out.

Pitou, however, smiled at her with such a fascinating
air, that the words expired before Aunt Angelique could
give them utterance.

Then she attempted to smile, in her turn, hoping to
exorcise that ferocious animal, CiiUed hunger, and which
had taken up his abode in the stomach of her nephew.

But the proverb is right ; the famished stomach of
Pitou remained both deaf and dumb.

His aunt, instead of smiling, wept.

This somewhat incommoded Pitou, but it did not pre-
vent his eating.

'* Oh ! oh ! aunt, how good you arc," said he, '' to cry
thus with joy on my arrival. Thanks, my good aunt,
thanks !"

And he went on devouring.

Evidently the French revolution had completely denat-
uralized this man.

lie bolted three quarters of the fowl and left a small
quantity of the rice at the bottom of the dish, saying :

** You like the rice best, do you not, my dear aunt ?
It is softer for your teeth. I leave you the rice,"

This attention, which she no doubt imagined to be a
sarcasm, almost suffocated Aunt Angelique. She reso-
lutely advanced toward young Pitou, Buatched the dish
from his hands, uttering a blasphemous expression, wliich
twenty years subsefjiK'ntly would liavo appeared aebnirably
suitable to a grenadier of the old guard.

Pitou heaved a sigh.

ii

ii

TAKING THE BASTILE. 527

**0h, annt," cried he, "you regret your fowl, do you
not ? "

" The villain ! " cried Aunt Angelique, " I believe that
he is jeering me."

Pitou rose from his chair.

" Aunt," said he, majestically,'' it was not my intention
to eat without paying for what I eat. I have money. I
will, if you please, board regularly with you, only I shall
reserve to myself the right of choosing my own dinner."
Rascal ! " exclaimed Aunt Angelique.
Let us see — we will calculate each portion at four
sous ; I now owe you for one meal — four sous' worth of
rice and two sous' of bread — six sous."

'* Six sous ! " cried the aunt ; "six sous ! Why, there
is eight sous' worth of rice and six sous' of bread, without
counting anything else."

" Oh ! I know I have not allowed anything for the fowl,
my good aunt, knowing that it came from your poultry-
yard ; he was an old acquaintance ; I knew him at once by
his comb."

" He was worth his price, however."

" He was five years old, at least. I stole him from under
his mother's wing for you ; he was then barely as big as
my fist, and I recollect even that you beat me, because,
when I brought him home to you, I did not bring you corn
enough to feed him the next day. Mademoiselle Cath-
erine gave me some barley ; he was my property, and I ate
my property ; I had a good right to do so."

His aunt, mad with auger, pulverized the revolutionary
hero with a look ; she had no voice.

"Get out of this ! " murmured she.

" What, at once, so soon after having dined, without
even giving me time to digest my dinner. Ah ! aunt,
aunt, that is by no means polite."

" Out with you."

Pitou, who had again sat down, rose from the armchair ;
he found, and that with a most lively feeling of satisfac-
tion, that his stomach could not have contained a single
grain of rice more than he had swallowed.

" Aunt," said he, majestically, "you are an unfeeling
relation. I will demonstrate to you that you are now act-
ing as wrongly toward me as you have always done ; that
you are still as harsh, still as avaricious as ever. Well ! I

528 - TAKING THE BASTILE.

will not allow yoa to go about telling every one that I have
devoured your property."

He placed himself on the threshold of the door, and in
a stentorian voice, whicli might be heard not onlv by the
inquisitive persons who had accompanied him and had been
present during the whole of this scene, but also by
every one who was passing at a distance of five hundred
paces.

" I call these worthy people to witness that, having ar-
rived from Paris, on foot, after having taken the Bastile —
being tired and hungry, I seated myself in this house —
that I ate my relation's provisions — that I was so harshly
reproached for the food of whicli I partook — that J was so
pitilessly driven from the house, that I feel myself com-
pelled to go."

Pitou delivered tins exordium in so pathetic a tone that
the neighbors began to murmur against the old woman.

"A poor traveler," continued Pitou, " who has walked
nine leagues — a worthy lad honored with the confidence of
Monsieur Gilbert and 5lonsieur Billot, and who was charged
by them to bring back Sebastian Gilbert to the Abb6 For-
tier — one of the conquerors of the Bastile — a friend of
Monsieur Bailly and of General Lafayette — I call upon you
all to witness that I have been turned out."

The murmurs went on increasing.

" And," pursued he, " as I am not a mendicant, as,
when I am reproached for the bread I eat, I pay for it,
here is half a crown which I lay down as payment for that
which I have eaten in my aunt's house."

And saying this, Pitou proudly drew a half crown from
his pocket, and threw it on the table, from which, in the
sight of all, it rebounded, hopped into the dish, and half
buried itself in the remaining rice.

The last trait completely confounded the old woman.
She bent down beneatli the universal reprobation to wliich
she liad exposed herself, and whicli was testified by a long,
loud murmur. Twenty hands were held out to Pitou,
who left the hut shaking the dust from his shoes on the
thresliold, and disappeared from his aunt's eyes, escorted
by a crowd of persons ofl;ering liim his meals and lodging,
hajjpy to be the host of a conqueror of the Bastile, a friend
of M. Bailly and of General Lafayette.

Aunt Angelique picked the half crown out of the rice,

TAKING THE BASTILE. 529

wiped it, and put it into a saucer, where it was to wait,
with many others, its transmigration into an old louis.

But while putting by this half crown of which she had
become possessed in so singular a manner, she sighed, re-
flecting that perhaps Pitou had had full right to eat the
whole of the contents of the dish, since he had so amply
paid for it.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Pitou wished, after having fulfilled the first duties of
obedience, to satisfy the first feelings of his heart.

It is a very delightful feeling to obey, when the orders
of the master are in perfect unison with the secret sym-
pathies of the person who obeys.

He, therefore, made the best use of his legs ; and going
along the narrow alley which leads from the Pleux to the
Rue Lonnet, which forms a sort of green girdle to that
portion of the town, he went straight across the fields
that he might the sooner arrive at Billot's farm.

But his rapid course was soon slackened ; every step he
took brought back some recollection to his mind.

When any one returns to the town or to the village in
which he was born, he walks upon his youth — he walks on
his past days, which spread themselves, as tlie English poet
says, like a carpet beneath the feet, to do honor to the
traveler who returns.

He finds at each step a recollection in the beatings of
his heart.

Here lie has suffered — there he has been happy ; here
he has sobbed with grief — there he has wept with joy.

Pitou, who was no analyzer, was compelled to be a man.
He discovered traces of the past as he proceeded on_ his
way, and he ari'ived with his soul replete with sensations
at the farm of Dame Billot.

When he perceived, at a hundred paces before him, the
long-slated roofs — when he measured with his eyes the
old elm-trees bending down over the moss-grown chim-
neys— when he heard the distant sound of the cattle, the
barking of the dogs, the carts lumbering along the road,
he placed his helmet more proudly on his head, grasped

2 3_p V.MAS— Vol. IX.

530 TAKING THE BASTILE.

his dragoon's saber with more firmness, and endeavored
to give himself a martial appearance, such as was fitting
to a lover and a soldier.

At first, no one recognized him — a proof that his effort
was attended with tolerable success.

A stable-boy was standing by the pond watering his
horses, and, hearing a noise, turned round, and through
the tufted head of a withy tree he perceived Pitou, or,
rather, a helmet and a saber.

The stable-boy seemed struck with stupefaction.

Pitou, on passing him, called out :

"Hilloa ! Barnaut ! good day, Barnaut !"

The boy, astounded that the helmet and the saber knew
his name, took off his small hat, and let fall the halter by
which he held the horses.

Pitou passed on smiling.

But the boy was by no means reassured ; Pitou's benev-
olent smile had remained concealed beneath his helmet.

At the same moment Dame Billot perceived the approach
of this military man through the windows of the dining-
room.

She immediately jumped up.

In country places, everybody was then on the alert ; for
alarming rumors were spread abroad, of brigands wlio
were destroying the forest trees, and cutting down fields
of corn though still unripe.

AVhat did the arrival of this soldier portend ? "Was it
an attack, or Avas it assistance ?

Dame Billot had taken a general survey of Pitou as he
approached. She asked herself what could be the mean-
ing of such country-looking garments with so brilliant a
helmet ; and, we must confess it, her suppositions tended
as much toward suspicion as toward hope.

The soldier, whoever he might be, went straight to the
kitclien.

Dame Billot advanced two steps toward the newcomer.
Pitou, on his side, that he might not be behindhand iu
politeness, took off his helmet.

" Ange Pitou ! " she exclaimed, " you here, Ange ?"

" Good day. Ma'am Billot," replied Pitou.

"Ange! Oh, good Heaven! who ever would have
guessed it ? AVhv, you have enlisted then ? "

" Oh, enlisted f " 'cried Pitou,

TAKING THE BASTILE. 53I

And he smiled somo'vhat disdainfully.

Then he looked around, seeking for one he did not find
tliere.

Dame Billot smiled ; she guessed tlie meaning of Pitou's
looks.

Then, with great simplicity .

" You are looking for Catherine ! " she said.

*'To pay my respects to her/' replied Pitou ; ** yes,
Madame Billot."

" She is attending to the drying of the lineii. Come,
now, sit doAvn ; look at me — speak to me."

"■ Very willingly," said Pitou. *' Good day — good day
— good day, Madame Billot."

And Pitou took a chair.

Around him were soon grouped, and at the doors and
on the steps of the staircases, all the servant-maids and
the farm-laborers, to whom the stable-boy had quickly
communicated the arrival of the soldier.

And as each of them came in, they might be heard
whispering :

" Why, it is Pitou ! "

'' Yes, 'tis he, indeed ! "

" Eeally ! "

Pitou cast a benign glance on all his former comrades.
His smile, to most of them, was a caress.

*' And you have come from Paris, Ange ? " said the
mistress of the house.

" Straight, Madame Billot."

*' And how is your master ? "

''Very well, Madame Billot."

''And how are things going on in Paris ?"

"Very badly."

"Ah !"

And the circle of auditors drew nearer.

"The king ?" inquired the farmer's wife.

Piton shook his head, and gave a clacking sound with
his tongue, which was very humiliating for the monarchy.

" The queen ? "

Pitou, to this question, made no reply at all.

"Oh !" exclaimed Mme. Billot.

" Oh I" repeated all present.

" Come, now, speak on, Pitou," said Mme. Billot.

*=' Well, ask me anything you please," replied Pitou, who

532 TAKING THE BASTILE.

did not wish to communicate all the interesting news he
brought, in tlie absence of Catherine.

'• Why have you a helmet ?" asked Mme. Billot.

"It is a trophy," said Pitou.

"And what is a trophy, my friend?" inquired the
good woman.

" Ah ! that is true, !^[Ine. Billot," replied Pitou, with a
protecting smile: " you cannot know Avhat a trophy is.
A trophy is when one has vanquished an enemy, Madame
Billot."

''You have, then, vanquished an enemy, Pitou ?"

"One!" replied Pitou, disdainfully. "Ah! my good
Madame Billot, you do not know, then, that we two. Mon-
sieur Billot and I, have taken the Bastilc ? "

This magic sentence electrified the audience. Pitou
felt the breath of the astonished auditors upon his hair as
they bent forward to gaze at him, and their hands on the
back of his chair.

" Tell us — tell us a little of what our man has done,"
said Mme. Billot, with pride, but trembling with appre-
hension at the same time.

Pitou looked around to see if Catherine were coming ;
but she came not.

It appeared to him absolutely insulting, that to hear
such recent news, and brought by such a courier. Mile.
Billot did not at once leave her linen.

Pitou shook his head ; he was beginning to be out of
humor.

" Why, yon see, it would take a long time to tell it all/'
said he.

" And you are hungry ? " inquired Mme. Billot.

" It may be so "

" Thirsty ? "

" I will not say no."

Instantly farm-laborers and servants hastened to pro-
cure him refreshment, so that Pitou soon had within his
reach a goblet, bread, meats, and fruits of every descrip-
tion before he had even reflected on the bearing of his
ajiswer.

Pitou had a warm liver, as thev say in the country —
that is to say, he digested quickly ; but, however quick
might be his digestion, it was still amply occupied with
Aunt Angelique's fowl and rice ; not more than half au

TAKING THE BASTILE. 533

hour having elapsed since he hud absorbed the hist
mouthfuh

What he had asked for, therefore, did uot enable him
to gain so much time as he had anticipated, so rapidly
had he been served.

He saw that it was necessary for him to make a desper-
ate effort, and he set himself to work to eat.

But whatever may have been his good-will, after a mo-
ment or two he was compelled to pause.

*' What is the matter with you ?" asked Mme. Billot.

*' Why — really, I must say "

*' Bring Pitou something to drink."

*' I have cider here, Ma'am Billot."

'*' But perhaps you like brandy better ?"

''Brandy!"

''Yes; perhaps you are accustomed to drink it in
Paris."

The worthy woman imagined that during twelve days'
absence Pitou had had time enough to be corrujited.

Piton indignantly repelled the supposition.

" Brandy ! " cried lie again, " and for me — oh, never ! "

" Well, tlien, speak."

" But if I now tell you the whole story," said Pitou, " I
shall have to begin it again for Mademoiselle Catherine,
and it is a very long one."

Two or three persons rushed out toward the laundry, to
fetch Mile. Catherine.

But while they were all running about in search of her,
Pitou mechanically turned his head toward the staircase
which led up t? the first story of the house, and being
seated precisely opposite this staircase, he saw Mile.
Catherine, through an open door, looking out of a win-
dow.

Catherine was looking in the direction of the forest —
that is to say, toward Boursonne.

Catherine was so much absorbed in contemplation that
the unusual movement in the house had not struck her ;
nothing within it had attracted her attention, which
seemed to be wholly engrossed by what was happening
without.

" Ah ! ah ! " cried he, sighing, looking toward the
forest, toward Boursonne, toward Monsieur Isidor de
Charny. " Yes, that is it."

534 TAKING THE BASTILE.

And he heaved a second sigh, more melancholy than the
first.

And at tliis moment the messengers returned, not only
from the huindry, but from every place in which it was
probable Mile. Oatlierine might be found.

'' Well ?" inquired Mme. Billot.

**' We liave not seen mademoiselle.

'' Catherine ! Catherine ! " cried Mme. Billot.

The young girl did not hear her.

Pitou then ventured to speak.

'' Madame Billot," said he, "■ I well know why they did
not find Mademoiselle Catherine at the laundry."

" And why did they not find her ?"

" Because she is not there."

" You know, then, where she is 'i"

" Yes."

'' Where is she, then ? "

*' Yonder — upstairs."

And taking l)ame Billot by the hand, he made her go
up the three or four steps of the staircase, and showed
her Catherine, who was sitting on the sill of the window.

" She is dressing lier hair," said the good woman.

" Alas ! no ; her hair is already dressed," rei^lied Pitou,
in a melancholy tone.

Tlic farmer's wife paid no attention to Pitou's melan-
choly, but, in aloud voice, she called :

" Catherine ! Catherine ! "

The young girl started with surprise, quickly closed her
window, and said :

'* What is the matter ?

" Come down, then, Catherine ! " cried Dame Billot,
little doubting the joyful effect her words would produce
upon her. ** Come down here ; here is Ange just arrived
from Paris."

Pitou, with great anxiety, listened for the answer which
Catherine would make.

" Ah ! " coldly replied Catherine.

So coldly that poor Pitou's heart sunk within him.

And she descended the staircase with all the phlegmatic
manner of the Flemish women we see in the paintings of
Van Oatade and Braner.

"Well," said nhe, when slie reached tlie kitchen floor,
^^v, it is really Pitou ! "

TAKING THE BASTILE. 535

Pitou bowed, blushing deeply, and trembling in every

nerve.

" He has a helmet," said a servant-maid, whispering

into her mistress's ear.

Pitou overheard her, and watched the effect produced on
Catherine's countenance.

A lovely countenance, perhaps somewhat paler, but still
full and peach-like.

But Catherine did not evince any admiration for Piton's
helmet.

''Ah! he has a helmet," she said, *' and for what
purpose ? "

This time indignation mastered every other feeling in
the mind of the bold youth.

'' I have a helmet and a saber," said he, proudly, *' be-
cause I have fought and killed German dragoons and Swiss
soldiers ; and if you doubt it, Mademoiselle Catherine, ask
your father, and he will tell you."

Catherine's mind was so preoccupied that she heard only
the last words uttered by Pitou.

" And how is my father ? " inquired she. " How bap-
pens it that he did not return with you ? Is there bad
news from Paris ? "

" Very bad," replied Pitou.

" I thought that everything had been arranged," ob-
served Catherine.

*' Yes, that is true ; but everything is disarranged
again," rejoined Pitou.

^' Was there not a reconciliation between the king and
the people, and was not Monsieur Necker recalled ? "

*' But little is thought of Monsieur Necker," said Pitou.

" And yet that satisfied the people, did it not ?"

" It so well satisfied them tliat tlie people are now about
to do themselves justice, and to kill all their enemies."

** All their enemies ! " exclaimed Catherine, with aston-
ishment ; " who, tlien, are the enemies of the people ? "

" The aristocrats, to be sure," said Pitou.

Catherine turned pale.

*' But Avho do tliey call aristocrats ?" she asked.

** Wliy, those who have large estates — those who have
fine country-seats — those who starve the nation — those who
have all, while we liave nothing."

** Go on, go on ! " impatiently cried Catherine.

636 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Those who liave beautiful horses aud fine carriages,
when we are obliged to go on foot."

" Great God ! '' exclaimed the youug girl, becoming so
pale as to be positively livid.

Pitou remarked this change in her countenance.

" I call aristocrats some persons of your acquaintance."

*' Of my acquaintance ? "

*' Of our acquaintance ?" said Dame Billot.

*' But who is it, then ? '' said Catherine, persistingly.

" i\Ionsieur Bertliier de Savigny, for instance."

*' Monsieur Berthicr de Savigny ?"

" Who gave you the gold buckles which you wore the
day you danced with Monsieur Isidor."

''Well?"

" Well, I saw people eating his heart, I, who am now
speaking to you."

A cry of terror was uttered by all present. Catherine
threw herself back in the chair which she had taken.

"You saw that?" cried Mme. Billot, trembling with
horror.

''And Monsieur Billot saw it, too.**

" Oh, good God !"

" Yes, and by this time they must have killed or burned
all the aristocrats of Paris and Versailles."

" It is frightful !" murmured Catherine.

"Friglitful ? and why so ? You are not an aristocrat,
you. Mademoiselle Billot ?"

" Monsieur Pitou," said Catherine, with gloomy energy,
** it appears to me that you were not so ferocious before
you went to Paris."

" And I am not more so now, mademoiselle," said Pitou,
somewhat staggered ; " but "

•' But then do not boast of the crimes committed by the
Parisians, since you are not a Parisian, and that you did
not commit these crimes."

"I was so far from committing them," said Pitou,
*' that Monsieur Billot and myself narrowly escaped being
murdered while defending Monsieur Berthier."

" Oh, my good father ! my brave father ! I recognize
him there ! " enthusiastically exclaimed Catiierine.

"My good, my worthy man !" cried Mme. Billot, her
eyes streaming with tears. *' Tell me, what did he do ?"

Pitou then related the whole of the dreadful scene whicb

TAKING THE BASTILE. 537

had occnrred on the Place do Greve, the despair of Billot,
and hif^ desire to return to Villers-CottereLs.

*' Why did he not return, then ? '' cried Catherine, and
in an accent that deeply moved Piton's heart.

Dame Billot clasjied her hands.

" Monsieur Gilbert would not allow it," replied Pitou.

" Does Monsieur Gilbert wish, then, that my husband
should be killed ?" said Mnie. Billot, sobbing.

" Does he wish, then, that my father's house should be
ruined ?" added Catherine, in the same tone of gloomy
melancholy.

"Oh, by no means!" cried Pitou. " Monsieur Billot
and Monsieur Gilbert understand each other. Monsieur
Billot will remain still some time at Paris, to finish the
revolution."

" What ! by themselves — all alone ? " cried Dame
Billot.

" No ; with Monsieur Bailly aiul Monsieur de La-
fayette."

"Ah!" cried the farmer's wife, Avith admiration, "if
he iiideed is with Monsieur de Lafayette and Monsieur

Bailly "

" When does he think of returning ? " inquired
Catherine.

" Oh, as to that, mademoiselle, I cannot tell."

" Aud you, Pitou, how happens it, then, that 3^ou have
returned V'

" AVho — I ? Why, I brought back Sebastian Gilbert to
the Abl)e Fortier, and I have come here to bring you Mon-
sieur Billot's iustructions."

Pitou, while saying the words, rose, not without a cer-
tain degvoo of diplomatic dignity, -which was understood,
if not by the servants, at all events by their mistresses.

Dame Billot rose, and at once dismissed all the laborers
and servants.

Catherine, who had remained seated, studied the
thoughts of Pitou even in the depths of his soul before
they issued from his lips.

" What can he have told him to say to me ? " she asked
herself-

538 . TAKING THE BASTILE.

CHAPTER XXIX.

The two women summoned np all tbeir attention to
listen to the desires of this honored husbiinU and father.
Piton was well aware that the task was a ditliciilt one ; he
had seen botii Dame Billot and Catherine filling their
several stations at the farm ; he knew the habit of com-
mand of the one, and the firm independence of the other.

Catherine, who was so gentle a daughter, so laborious,
so good, had acquired, by virtue of these very qualities, a
very great ascendency over every person connected with
the farm ; and what is the spirit of domination, if it is
not a firm will not to obey ?

Piton knew, in explaining his mission, how much j)leas-
ure lie was about to cause to the one, and how much grief
he would inflict upon the other.

Reducing Mme. Billot to i^lay a secondary part appeared
to him unnatural, absurd. It gave Catherine more im-
portance with regard to Piton, and under actual circum-
stances Catherine by no means needed this.

But at the farm he represented one of Homer's lieroes
— a mouth — a memory, but not an intellectual jjcrson ;
he expressed liimself in the following terms :

"Madame Billot, ^lonsieur Billot's intention isthatvou
should have the slightest possible annoyance."

"And how so ?" said the good woman, much surprised.

" What is the meaning of the word annoyance ?'' said
Catherine.

" I mean to say," replied Pitou, " that the management
of a farm like yours is a species of government replete with
cares and labor, that there are bargains to bo made '*'

" And what of that ? " said the worthy woman.

** Payments "

"Well?"

" Fields to plow "

"Go on."

" j\Ioncy to 1)0 collected "

** Who says tbe contrary ? "

" No OTIC, assuredly, Madame Billot; but in order to
make bargains, it is necessary to travel about."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 539

** I have mv horse."

w

" 111 paying, it is often necessary to dispute.

*' Oh ! I have a good tongue."

" To cultivate tlie fields."

" Am I not accustomed to agriculture ?"

*' And to get in the harvest. Ah ! that is quite another
matter. Meals have to be cooked for the laborers, the
wagoners must be assisted."

*' For the welfare of my good man, to do all these would
not frighten me," cried the worthy woman.

" But, Madame Billot — in short — so much work — and —
getting rather aged "

*' Ah ! " cried Dame Billot, looking askance at Pitou.

" Come to my assistance, Mademoiselle Catherine," said
the poor lad, finding his energy diminishing by degrees as
his position became more and more difficult.
• " I do not know what I am to do to assist you," replied
Catherine.

*' "Well, then, this is the plain fact," rejoined Pitou.
*' Monsieur Billot does not desire that Madame Billot
should be subiected to so much trouble "

''And who, then ?" cried she, interrupting him, trem-
bling at once with admiration and respect.

" He has chosen some one who is stronger, and who is
both himself and yourself. He has appointed Mademoi-
selle Catherine."

*' My daughter Catherine to govern the house!" ex-
claimed the wounded mother, with an accent of mistrust
and inexpressible jealousy.

"Under your direction, my dear mother," the young
girl hastened to say, and blushing deeply.

"By no means — by no means !" cried Pitou, who, from
the moment he had summoned up courage enough to speak
out, was determined to go through with it ; " it is not so.
I must execute my commission to the letter. Monsieur
Billot delegates and authorizes Mademoiselle Catherine, in
his stead and place, to attend to all the work and all the
affairs of the house."

Every one of these words, which bore the accent of
truth, penetrated the heart of the housekeeper ; and so
excellent was her nature that, instead of allowing the
jealousy she had at firat naturally felt to become more
bitter, or her anger to become more violent, the certainty

b4rO , TAKING THE BASTILE.

of her climimition in importance appeared to make her
mure resigned, more obedient, and more convinced of the
infallibility of her luisband's judgment.

"Was it possible that Billot could be mistaken ? was it
possible to disobey Billot ?

These were the only two arguments which the worthy
woman nsed to convince herself.

And her resistance at once ceased.

She looked at her daughter, in whose eyes slie saw only
modesty, confidence, the desire to succeed, unalterable
tenderness, and respect. She yielded absolutely.

''Monsieur Billot is right," she said; "Catherine is
young; she has a good head — she is even headstrong."

" Oh ! yes," said Pitou, certain that lie had flattered
the self-love of Catherine at the same time that he in-
dulged in an epigram at hor expense.

*' Catherine,'"' continued Dame Billot, *'will be more at
her ease than I should be upon the road. She could bet-
ter look after the laborers for whole days than I could.
She would sell better ; she would make purchases with
greater sureness ; she would know how to make herself
obeyed."

Cathei-ine smiled.

''Well, then," continued the good woman, Avithouteven
being compelled to make an effort to restrain a sigh,
"here is our Catherine, M'ho is ffoins: to have all her own
way ; she will run about as she pleases — she Avill now have
the command of the purse — now she will always be seen
upon the roads — my daughter, in sort, transformed into a
lad "

" You need be under no apprehension for Mademoiselle
Catherine," said Pitou, with a self-suflicient air; ''lam
liere, and I will accompany her wherever she goes."

This gracious oiler, on which Ange perhaps calculated
to produce an effect, produced so strange a look ou the
part of Catherine that he was quite confused.

The young girl blushed — not as women do when any-
thing agreeable has been said to them, but M'ilh a sort
of double feeling of anger and impatience, evincing at
once a desire to speak and the necessity of remaining
.silent.

Pitou was not a man of the world, and therefore could
not appreciate these shades of feeling.

TAKING THE BxVSTILE. 54I

But having eoraprehended that Catheriue'g blnshiug was
not a perfect acquiescence :

" What ! '"' said he, with an agreeable smile, which dis-
played his powerful teeth under his thick lips, ''what!
you say not a word, Mademoiselle Catherine ?"

" You are not aware, then. Monsieur Pitou, that yon
have uttered a stupidity ?"

" A stupidity ! "' exclaimed the lover.

"Assuredly!" cried Dame Billot, "to think of my
daughter Catherine going about with a body-guard/'

*• But, in short, in the woods ! " said Pitou, with an
air so ingenuously conscientious that it would have been
a crime to laugh at him.

"Is that also in the instrnctions of our good man?"
continued Dame Billot, who thus evinced a certain dis-
position for epigram.

. "Oh!" added Catherine, " that would be too indolent
a profession, which neither my father would have advised
Monsieur Pitou to adopt, nor would Monsieur Pitou have
accepted it."

Pitou rolled his lars-c and terrified eves from Catherine
to Dame Billot ; the whole scaffolding of his building was
giving way.

Catherine, as a true woman, at once comprehended the
painful disappointment of Pitou.

" Monsieur Pitou," said she, " was it at Paris that you
have seen young girls compromising their reputation in
this w^ay, by always draggijig young men after tliem ?"

" But you are not a young girl, you," stammered Pitou,
"since you are the mistress of the house."

" Come, come, we have talked enough for to-night,"
abruptly said Dame Billot. " The mistress of the house
will have much to do to-morrow, when I shall give up the
house to her, according to her father's orders. Come,
Catherine, we must prepare for bed. Good night, Pitou."

Pitou bowed with great deference to the two ladies,
which Catherine returned with a slight inclination of the
liead .

Poor Ano^e retired for the niirht to the small room he
had formerly occupied at the farm, and although greatly
disappointed at the coldness of Catlicrine's reception, he
soon fell asleep, to whicli the fatigue of the day greatly
induced.

542 • TAKING THE BASTILE.

The next morning he was up soon after day break, but
saw notliing of Catherine until the whole family assembled
at the breakfast-table.

After this substantial repast was concluded, a ceremony
was coinnieneod before the astounded eyes of"Pitou, a
ceremony that was not deficient in grandeur nor in poetry,
from its rustic simplicity.

Dame Billot drew her keys from off the bunch, one by
one, and delivered them to Catherine, giving her a list of
the linen, of the furniture, the provisions, and the con-
tents of the cellars. She conducted her daughter to the
old secretary or bureau, made of mahogany, inlaid with
ivory and ebony, somewhere about the year 3 738 or 1740,
in the secret drawer of which father Billot locked up his
most valuable papers, his golden louis, and all the treas-
ures and archives of the family.

Catherine gravely allowed herself to be invested with
the supreme command over everything, and took due note
of the secret drawers ; she questioned her mother with
much intelligence, reflected on eacli answer, and the in-
formation she required being obtained, appeared to store it
up in the depths of lier memory, as a weapon in reserve in
case of any contest.

After tlie furniture and household articles had hccn
examined. Dame Billot went on to the cattle, the lists of
which were carefully made out.

Horses, oxen, and cows ; sheep, whether in good order
or sick ; lambs, goats, fowls, and pigeons — all were counted
and noted down.

But this was merely for the sake of regularity.

Of this branch of the farm business the young girl had
for a long time past been the special administratrix.

There was scarcely a hen in the V)arn-yard of which she
did not know the cackle ; the lambs were familiar M-ith
her in a moiith ; the pigeons knew her so well they would
frequently completely surround her in their flight; often
even tliey would perch upon her shoulders after having
cooed at her feet.

The liorses neighed when Catherine approached. She
alone could make tiie most restive of them obey. One of
them, a colt, bred upon the farm, was so vicious as to
allow no one to api)roach hiui ; but he would break his
halter and knock down his stall to get to Catherine, put-

TAKING THE BASTILE. 543

ting his uose into her hand, or into her pocket, to get at
the crust of bread he was always sure of finding there.

]N^othiiig was so beautiful or so smile-inspiring as this
lovely fair-haired girl, with her large blue eyes, her white
neck, her round arms, her small fat hands, when she came
out with her apron full of corn to a spot near the pond,
where the ground had been beaten and saltpetered to
harden it for a feeding-place, and on which she would
throw the grain she brought by handfuls.

Then would be seen all the young chickens, all the
pigeons, all the young lambs, hurrying and scrambling
toward the pond ; the beaks of the birds soon made the
flooring appear speckled, the red tongues of the young
goats licked the ground, or picked up crisp bnckwheat.
This area, darkened by the layers of corn, in five minutes
became as white and clean as the delf plate of the laborer
■when he has finished his meal.

Certain human beings have in their eyes a fascination
that subdues, or a fascination that terrifies ; two sensa-
tions so powerful over the brute creation that they never
think of resisting them.

Which of us has not seen a savage bull looking for
several minutes, with melancholy expression, at a child
who smiles at him without comprehending the danger he
is running ? He pities him.

Which of us has not seen the same bnll fix a sinister and
affrighted look on a robust farmer, who masters him by
the steadiness of his gaze and by a mute threat ? The
animal lowers his head, he ap2)ears to be preparing for the
co7nbat ; but his feet seem rooted in the ground — he
shudders — he is terrified.

Catherine exercised one ■ of these two influences on all
that surrounded her ; she was at once so calm and so firm,
there was so much gentleness, and yet so much decided
will, so little mistrust, so little fear, that the aniiual
standing near her did not feel even the temptation of an
evil thought.

And this extraordinary influence she, with greater rea-
son, exercised over thinking beings. 8he possessed a charm
that was irresistible ; not a man in the whole district had
ever smiled when speaking of Catherine ; no young man
entertained an evil thought toward her ; those who
loved her wished to liave her for their wife : those who

544 TAKING THE BASTILE.

did not love her would have desired that she were their
sister.

Pitou, with head cast down, his hands hanging listless
by his side, his ideas wandering, meclianically followed
the young girl and her mother while they were-Lakiug a
list of the farm stock.

They had not addressed a word to him. He was there
like a guard in a tragedy ; and his helmet did not a little
contribute to give that singular appearance.

After this they passed in review all the male and female
servants of the farm.

Dame Billot made them form a half circle, in the center
of which she placed herself.

" My children," said she, *' our master is not yet com-
ing back from Paris, but he has chosen a master for us in
his place. It is my daughter Catherine, who is here — she
is young and strong. As to myself, I am old, and my
head is weak. Our master has done rightly. Catherine
is now your mistress. She is to receive and give money.
As to her orders, I shall be the first to receive and execute
them : any of you who may be disobedient will have to
deal with her."

Catherine did not add a single word ; she tenderly em-
braced her mother.

The effect of this kiss was greater than that of any well-
rounded phrase. Dame Billot wept — Pitou was much
affected.

All the servants received the announcement of the new
reign with acclamations.

Catherine immediately entered on her new functions,
and allotted to all their several services. Each received
her mandate, and set out immediately to execute it, with
the good-will which every one demonstrates at the com-
mencement of a reign.

Pitou was the only one remaining, and he at length, ap-
proaching Catherine, said to her :

''And I ?"

** Ah ! you," replied Catherine, " I have no orders to
give you."

" How I I am, then, to remain without having anything
to do?"

" What do you wish to do ?"

** Why, what 1 did before I went to Paris."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 545

te

Before going there, you were received into the house
by my mother."

" But you are now the mistress; therefore, point out
the work I am to do."

" I have no work for you, Monsieur Angc."

"And why?"

*' Because you — you are a learned man, a Parisian gen-
tleman, to whom sucli rustic labors would not be suitable."

'' Can it be possible ! " exclaimed Pitou.

Catherine made a sign, which implied, '' It is even so.*'

*'I a learned man ! " repeated Pitou.

''Undoubtedly."

"But look at my arms, Mademoiselle Catherine."

" That matters not."

" But, in short, Mademoiselle Catherine," said the poor
lad, in despair, " why is it that under the pretext of my
being a learned man, you would force me to die of hun-
ger ? You do not know, then, that the philosopher
Epictetus became a menial servant that he might have
bread to eat ? — that ^Esop, the fable writer, earned liis
bread by the sweat of his brow ? They were, however,
people much more learned than I am."

" AVhat would vou have ? As I have said before, it is

even so."

" But Monsieur Billot accepted me as forming part of
his household, and he has sent me back from Paris that I
may still be so."

** That may be the case ; for my father might have com-
pelled you to undertake things Avhich I, his daughter,
would not venture to impose upon you."

" Do not impose them upon me. Mademoiselle Cathe-

rine."

" But then you would remain in idleness, and that 1
could not at all allow. My father had the right to do so,
he being the master, and which I could not do, bein
merely his agent. I have charge of his property, and
must take care that his projierty be productive."

" But once I am willing to work, I shall be productive ;
you must see clearly, mademoiselle, that you keep swim-
ming round in the same vicious circle."

" What say you ? " cried Catherine, who did not com-
prehend the grandiloquent phrases of Pitou ; •' what mean
you by a vicious circle ? "

546 - TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' We call a bad argument a vicious circle, mademoiselle.
No ; let me remain at the farm, and send me on your
messages if you will. You will then see whether I am a
learned man and an idle fellow. Besides which, yoa
have books to keep, accounts to put in order: Arith-
metic is my particular forte."

"It is not, in my opinion, sufficient occupation for a
man," said Catherine.

" Why, then, it would seem I am fit for nothing," said
Piton.

" Continue to live here," said Catherine, in a gentler
tone ; *' I will reflect upon it, and we will see."

"Yon require to reflect in order that yon may know
whether you ought to keep me here. But what have I
done to yon, then. Mademoiselle Catherine ? Ah ! you
were not thus formerly.^'

Catherine gave an almost imperceptible shrug of her
shoulders.

She had no good reasons to give to Piton, and neverthe-
less it was evident that his pertinacity fatigued her.

Therefore, breaking off the conversation :

"Enough of this, Monsieur Pitou," said she; "I am
going to La Fertc-Milon."

" Then I will run and saddle your horse, Mademoiselle
Catherine."

" By no means. On the contrary, remain where you

are."

"You refuse, then, to allow me to accompany you ?"

" Remain here," said Catherine, imperatively.

Pitou remained as if nailed to the spot, holding down
his head and restraining a tear, which seared his eyeballs
ac if it had been molten lead.

Catherine left Pitou where he was, went out, and ordered
one of the farm servants to saddle her horse.

"Ah!" murmured Pitou, "you think me changed,
Mademoiselle Catherine, but it is you who are so, and
much more changed than I am."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 54:7

CHAPTER XXX.

Dame Billot, resigned without affectation to under-
take the functions of an upper servant, had, without ill-
humor, and with good-will, resumed her occupations.
Movement, which had for an instant been suspended
throughout the agricultural hierarchy, soon returned, and
the farm once more resembled the interior of a humming
and industrious hive.

While they were getting her horse ready, Catherine
reentered the house ; she cast a glance at Pitou, whose
body remained motionless, but whose head turned like a
weather-cock, following each movement which the young
girl made until she went up-stairs to her own room.

"What was it Catherine had gone to her room for?"
said Pitou to himself.

Poor Pitou, what had she gone there for ? She went
there to dress her hair, to put on a clean cap and a pair of
finer stockings.

Then when this supplementary toilet was completed,
as she heard her horse pawing the ground beneath the
windovv, she came down, kissed her mother, and set out.

Reduced to positive idleness, and feeling but ill-assured,
from a slight glance, half indifferent, half compassionate,
which Catherine had addressed to him as she left the door,
Pitou could not endure to remain in such a state of anxious
perplexity.

Since Pitou had once more seen Catherine, it appeared
to him that the life of Catherine was absolutely necessary
to him.

And, besides, in the depths of his heavy and dreaming
mind, something like a suspicion came and went with the
regularity of the pendulum of a clock.

It is the peculiar property of ingenuous minds to per-
ceive everything in equal degree. These sluggish natures
are not less sensible than others ; they feel, but thoy do
not analyze.

Analysis is the habit of enjoying and suffering ; a man
must have become, to a certain degree, habituated to sen-

548 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Biitioii to see their ebullitiou in the depth of that abyss
whicli is called the humau heart.

Tliere are uo old men who arc ingenuous.

AVhen Pitou had heard the horse's footsteps at a certain
distance from the house, he ran to the door. - He tlieu
perceived Catherine, who was going along a narrow cross-
road, which led from the farm to the high-road to La
Ferte-Milou, and terminated at the foot of a hill, whose
summit was covered by the forest.

From the thresiiold of the door he breatlied forth an
adieu to the young girl, which was replete with regret and
kindly feeling.

But this adieu had scarcely been expressed by liis hand
and heart, when Pitou reflected on one circumstance.

Catherine might have forbidden him to accompany her,
but she could not prevent him from following her.

Catherine could, if she pleased, say to Pitou, "I will
not see you ; " but she could not very well say to him, '^ I
forbid your looking at me."

Pitou, therefore, rellected that, as he had nothing to
do, there was nothing in the world to prevent him from
gaining the wood and keeping along the road which Cath-
erine was going ; so that, without being seen, he would see
her from a distance through the trees.

It was only a league and a half from the farm to La
Ferte-Milon. A league and a half to go there, and a
league and a half to return. What was that to Pitou ?

Moreover, Catherine would get to the high-road by a
line which formed an angle with the forest. By taking a
straight direction, Pitou would gain a quarter of a league,
so that the distance for him would be only two leagues
and a half for the whole journey.

Two leagues and a half was a mere nothing of a walk
for a man who ti]ipeared to have robbed Tom Thumb, or
to have at least pilfered the seven-league boots which Tom
had taken from the ogre.

Pitou had scarcely imagined this project before he put
it into execution.

While Catherine was going toward the high-road, he,
Pitou, stooping down I)ehind the high, waving corn, stole
across to the forest.

In an instant he had reached the border of (he wood ;
and once there, he jumped across the wide ditch which

TAKING THE BASTILE. 549

Toouiided it, and rushed beneath the trees, less graceful
but as rapid as a terrified deer.

He ran for a quarter of an hour in this way, and at the
end of that time he perceived the wood becoming ligliter,
for he had nearly reached the opposite edge near tlie rond.

There he stopped, leaning against an enormous oak,
which completely concealed him behind its knotted trunk,
lie felt perfectly sure that he had got ahead of Catherine.

He waited ten minutes — even a quarter of an hour — but
saw no one.

Had she forgotten something that she should have taken
with her at the farm ? This was possible.

AYith the greatest possible precaution Piton crept near
the road, stretched out his head from behind a great
beech-tree, which grew upon the very edge of the ditch,
belonging, as it were, half to the road, half to the forest.
From this he had a good view of the plain, and could have
perceived anything that was moving npon it ; lie, how-
ever, could discern nothing.

He felt assured, therefore, that Catherine must have
returned to the farm.

Piton retraced his steps. Either she had not yet reached
the farm, and he would see her return to it, or she had
reached it, and he would see her come out again.

Pitou extended the compass of his long legs, and began
to remeasure the distance which separated him from the
plain.

He ran along the sandy part of the road, which was
softer to his feet, when he suddenly paused.

Pitoii had raised his eyes, and at the opposite end of
the road he saw at a great distance, blending as it were
with the blue horizon of the forest, the white horse and
the red jacket of Catherine.

The pace of Catherine's horse was an amble.

The horse, ambling along, had left the high-road, hav-
ing turned into a bridle-path, at the entrance of which
was a direction post, bearing the following inscription :

" Path leading from the road of La Fcrte-Milon to
Boursonne."

It was, as we have said, fi-oni a great distance that Piton
perceived this, but we know that distance was of no conse- "
quence to Piton,

** Ah ! " cried he, again darting into tlie forest, " it ia

550 T.iKING THE BASTILE.

not, then, to La Ferte-Milou that she was going, but to
Bonrsouue I And yet, I am not mistaken ; she said La
Ferte-Milon more than ten times ; she had a coramissiou
given to her to make purchases at La Ferte-Milon. Dame
Billot herself spoke of La Ferte-Milon."

And while saying these words, Piton continued running.
Pitou ran faster and faster still. Pitou ran like a madman.

For Pitou, urged on by doubt, the first symptom of
iealousy — Pitou was no longer biped. Pitou appeared to
De one of those winged machines, which Dssdalus in par-
ticular, and the great mechanicians of antiquity in gen-
eral, imagined so well, but, alas ! executed so badly.

He greatly resembled, at that momeiit, those figures
stuffed with straw, with long reed arms, placed over lay
shops, and which the wind keeps turning in every direc-
tion.

Arms, legs, head, all are in motion, all are turning, all
seem to be flying.

Pitou's immensely long legs measured paces of at least
five feet, so widely could he distend them ; his hands, like
two broad bats at the end of two long sticks, struck' upon
the air like oars. His head — all mouth, all nostrils, and
all eyes — absorbed the air, which they sent forth again in
noisy breathings.

No horse could have been animated to so great a fury
of speed.

No lion could have had a more ferocious desire of com-
ing up with his jirey.

Pitou had more than half a league to run, when he per-
ceived Catherine ; he did not give her time enough to go
a quarter of a league, while he was running twice that
distance.

Ills speed, was, therefore, double that of a horse that
was trotting.

At length he came to a line with the object of his pur-
suit.

The extremity of the forest was then not more than five
hundred paces from him. He could see the light more
clearly through the trees, and just beyond them was the
estate of Boursonne.

Catherine pulled up her horse. Pitou instantly stopped.

It was time, for the poor devil's breath was fast failing
him.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 651

It was no longer merely for the purpose of seeing Cath-
erine that Pi ton followed her — it was to watch her.

She had spoken that which was false. What could be
her object ?

That mattered not. In order to gain a certain degree
of authority over her, it was necessary to surprise her, and
prove that she had uttered a flagrant falsehood.

Pitou threw himself head foremost into the underwood
and thorns, breaking through them with his helmet, and
using his saber to clear the way when it was necessary.

However, as Catherine was now only moving on at a
walk, from time to time the crackling noise of a branch
being broken reached her ear, which made both the horse
and the mistress prick up their ears.

Then Pitou, whose eyes never for a moment lost sight
of Catherine, stopped, which was of some advantage to
him, as it enabled him to recover his breath, and it des-
troyed, at the same time, any suspicion that Catherine
might entertain.

This, however, could not last long, nor did it.

Pitou suddenly heard Catherine's horse neigh, and this
neighing was replied to by the neighing of another horse.
The latter could not yet be seen.

But however this might be, Catherine gave hers a smart
cut witli her holly switch ; and the animal, which had
blown for a few moments, set off again at a full trot.

In about five minutes — thanks to this increase of speed
— she had come up with a horseman who had hastened
toward her with as much eagerness as she had shown to
reach him.

Catherine's movement had been so rapid and unexpected,
that poor Pitou had remained motionless, standing in the
same place, only raising himself on the tops of his toes
that he might sec as far as possible.

Tlie distance v.'as too great to enable him to see clearly.

But if he did not see, what Pitou felt, as if it had been
an electric shock, was the delight and the blushing of the
young girl. It was the sudden start which agitated her
■whole body. It was the sparkling of her eyes, usually so
gentle, but which then became absolutely flashing.

Neither could he see who was the cavalier, lie could
not distinguish his features ; but, recognizing_ by liis air,
by his green velvet hunting-coat, by his hat with its broad

552 TAKING THE BASTILE.

loop, by the easy and gmcef ul motion of his head, that he
must belong to the very highest class of society, his memory
at once reverted to the very handsome young man, the
elegant dancer of Yillers-Cotterefes — his heart, his mouth,
every fiber of his nerves, murmured the name of Isidor de
Charny.

And it was so, in fact.

Pitou lieaved a sigh, which was very much like a roar ;
and, rushing anew into the thicket, he advanced within
twenty paces of the two young people, then too much oc-
cupied with eacli other to remark whether the noise they
heard was caused by the rushing of a quadruped or of a
biped tlirough the underwood.

The young man, liowever, turned his head toward Pitou,
raised himself u}) in his stirrups, and cast a vague look
around him.

But at tlie same moment, and in order to escape this
investigation, Pitou threw himself flat on his face.

Then, like a serpent, he glided along the ground about
ten paces more, and having then got within hearing dis-
tance, he listened.

''Good day, Monsieur Lsidor," said Catherine.

" Monsieur Isidor I '' murmured Pitou ; '' I was sure of
that."

He then felt as if the horseman and the horse were
weighing on his poor heart, and trampling him under foot.

lie then felt in all his limbs the immense fatigue of the
race he had run, and wliicli doubt, mistrust, and jealousy
had urged him to during a whole hour.

The two young people had each let fall their bridle, and
had grasped each other's hands, and remained thus, mute
and smiling at each other, while the two horses, no doubt
accustomed to each other, were rubbing their noses to-
gether, and pawing the green turf by tlie roadside.

"You are behind your time to-day," said Catherine,
who was the first to speak.

"To-day!" exclaimed Pitou to himself; '"it seems
that on otiier days he was not behind time."

"It is not my fault, dear Catherine," rej)licd the young
man, "for I was detained by a letter from my brother,
which reached me only this morning, and to which I was
obliged to reply by return of post. 13ut fear nothing j
to-raorrow I will be more punctual."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 553

Catherine smiled, and Isidor pressed still more tenderly
the hand which had been left in his.

Alas ! all these proofs of affection were so many thorns
which made poor Pitou's heart bleed.

" You have, then, very late news from Paris?'' she
asked.

''Yes."

"Well, then," continued she, smiling, "so have I.
Did you not tell me the other day that when similar things
happened to two j^ersons who loved each other, that it is
called sympathy ? "

" Precisely ; and how did you receive your news, my
lovely Catherine ? "

" By Pitou."

" And who do you mean by Pitou ?" asked the young
nobleman, with a free and joyous air, which changed to
scarlet the color which had already overspread Pitou's
cheeks.

" Why, you know full well," said she. "Pitou is the
poor lad whom my father took into the farm, and who
gave me his arm one Sunday."

" Ah ! yes," said the young gentleman, " he whose knees
are like knots tied in a table-napkin."

Catherine laughed. Pitou felt h.mself humiliated, and
was in perfect despair. He looked at the knees, which
were, in fact, like knots, raising himself on both hands and
getting up, but he again fell flat on his face with a sigh.

"Come, now," said Catherine, " you must not so sadly
ill-treat my poor Pitou. Do you know what he proposeci
to me just now ! "

"No ; but tell mo what it was, my lovely one."

" Well, then, he proposed to accompany me to LaFcrte-
Milon."

" Where you are not going ? "

"No ; because I tliought vou were waiting for me here ;
while, on the contrary, it was I who almost had to wait
for you."

" Ah ! do you know you have uttered a royal sentence,
Catherine ? "

" Really ! well, I am sure I did not imagine I was doing
so."

" And why did you not accept the offer of this hand-
Bome cavalier ? he would have amused us."

2i— Dumas— Vol. IX,

554 ■ TAKING Till'] BASTILE.

** Not always, perhaps," replied Catherine, laugliiiig.

"Yon are right, Catherine," said Isidor, fixing his eyes,
which beamed with love, on the beautiful girl.

And he caught the blushing face of the young girl in
his arms, which he clasped round her neck.

Pitou closed his eyes that he might not see, but he had
forgotten to slnit his ears that he might not hear, and
the sound of a kiss reached them.

Pitou clutched his hair in despair, as does the man
afflicted with the plague in the foreground of Gros's picture,
representing Bonaparte visiting the soldiers attacked by the
plague in the hospital at Jaffa.

When Pitou had somewhat recovered his equanimity, he
found that the two young people had moved off to a little
distance, and were proceeding on their way, walking their
horses.

The last words which Pitou could catch were these :

" Yes, you are right. Monsieur Isidor ; let us ride to-
gether for an hour ; my horse's legs shall make up the
lost time. And," added she, laugliing, " it is a good
animal, who will not mention it to an}' one."

And this was all — the vision faded away. Darkness
reigned in the soul of Pitou, as it began to reign over all
nature, and, rolling upon the lieathcr, the poor lad aban-
doned himself to the overwhelming feelings which op-
pressed his heart.

He remained in this state for some time ; but the cool-
ness of the evening at lengtli restored him to himself.

*' I will not return to the farm," said he ; " I should
only be humiliated, scoffed at. I should eat the bread of
a woman who loves another man, and a man, 1 cannot
but acknowledge, who is handsomer, richer, and more
elegaiit than I am. No, my place is no longer at the
farm, but at Ilaramont — at Ilaramont, my own country,
where I shall, perhaps, find peojile who will not think
that my knees are like knots made in a table-napkin."

Having said this, Pitou trotted his good long legs to-
ward Haramont, where, without his at all suspecting it,
his reputation and that of his helmet and saber had pre-
ceded him, and where awaited him, if not happiness, at
least a glorious destiny.

lint, it is well known, it is not an attribute of humanity
to be perfectly happy.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 555

CHAPTER XXXI.

However, on arriving at Villers-Cotterets, toward ten
o'clock at night, after having the long run we have en-
deavored to describe, Pitou felt that, however melancholy
he might be, it was much better to stop at the Dauphin
Hotel and sleep in a good bed, than to sleep canopied by
the stars, under some beech or oak in the forest.

For as to sleeping in a house at Haramont, arriving
there at half-past ten at night, it was useless to think of
it. For more than an hour and a half every light had
been extinguished, and every door closed in that peaceful
viUage.

Pitou, tlierefore, put up at the Dauphin Hotel, where,
for a thirty-sous piece, he liad an excellent bed, a four-
pound loaf, a piece of cheese and a pot of cider.

Pitou was both fatigued and in love, tired out, and in
despair. The result of this was a struggle between his
moral and physical feelings, in which the moral were in
the first instance victorious, but at length succumbed.

That is to say, that from eleven o'clock to two in the
morning, Pitou groaned, sighed, turned and twisted in his
bed, without being able to sleep a wink ; but at two o'clock,
overcome by fatigue, he closed his eyes, not to open again
them till seven.

As at Haramont every one was in bed at half-past ten at
night, so at Villers-Cotterets everybody is stirring at seven
in the morning.

Pitou, on leaving the Dauphin Hotel, again found that
his helmet and saber attracted public attention.

After going about a hundred paces, he consequently
found himself the center of a numerous crowd.

Pitou had decidedly acquired an enormous popularity.

There are few travelers who have such good luck. The
sun, which, it is said, shines for the whole world, does
not always shine with a favorable brilliancy for people who
return to their own native place with the desire of being
considered prophets.

l)ut also it does not happen to every one to have an aunt
crabbed and avaricious to so ferocious a degree as Aunt

556 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Augeliqne ; it does not happen to every Gargantna, capa-
ble of swallowing an old cock boiled with rice, to be able
to offer a half crown to the pro])rietor of the victim.

But that which happens still less often to returning
persons, whose origin and traditions can be traced back to
the " Odyssey, '* is to return with a helmet on their heads
and a saber by their sides ; above all, when the rest of
their accouterments are far from being military.

For we must avow that it was, above all, this helmet
and this saber which recommended Pitou to the attention
of his fellow-citizens.

But for the vexations which Pitou's love encountered
on his return, it had been seen that all sorts of good for-
tune awaited him. This was undoubtedly a compensa-
tion.

And, immediately on seeing him, some of the inhabitants
of Villers-Cotterets, who had accompanied Pitou from the
Abbe For tier's door in the Rue de Soissons to Dame
Angelique's door in the Pleux, resolved, in order to con-
tinue the ovation, to accomjiany him from Yillers-Cot-
terets to Haramout.

And they did as they had resolved ; on seeing which,
the above-mentioned inhabitants of Ilaramont began to
appreciate their compatriot at his just value.

It is, however, only justice to them to say, that the
soil was already prepared to receive the seed. Piton's
first passage througii Haramont. rapid as it had been,
had left some traces in the minds of its inhabitants ;
his helmet and his saber had remained impressed on the
memories of those who had seen him appearing before them,
as a luminous apparition.

In consequence, the inhabitants of Ilaramont, seeing
themselves favored by this second return of Pitou, which
they no longer hoped for, received him with every mani-
festation of respect and consideration, entreating him to
doff, for a time, his warlike accouterments, and fix his
tent under tiie four linden-trees which overshadowed the
little village square, as the Thessalians used to entreat
Mars on the anniversary of his great triumphs.

Pitou deigned the more readily to consent to this, from
its being his intention to fix his domicile at Ilaramont.
He, therefore, accei)ted the shelter of a bedroom, which a
warlike person of the village let to him ready furnished.

TAKING THE BxiSTILE. 557

It was furnished with a deal bed, a palliasse, and a
mattress, two chairs, a table, and a water-jug.

The rent of the whole of this was estimated by the pro-
prietor himself at six livres per annum — that is to say,
the value of two dishes of fowl and rice.

The rent being agreed upon, Pitou took possession of
his domicile, and supplied those who had accompanied
him with refreshments at his own charge ; and as these
events, without speaking of the cider he had imbibed, had
somewhat excited his brain, he pronounced a harangue to
them, standing on the tlireshold of his new residence.

This harangue of Pitou's was a great event, and con-
sequently all Haramont was assembled round the house.

Pitou was somewhat of a clerk, and knew what fine
language was ; he knew the right words by which at that
period the haranguers of nations — it was thus Homer
called them — stirred up the popular masses.

Between M. de Lafayette and Pitou there was undoubt-
edly a great distance ; but between Haramont and Paris
the distance was greater still — morally speaking, it will be
clearly understood.

Pitou commenced by an exordium with which the Abbe
Fortier, critical as he was, would not have been dissatis-
fied.

"Citizens," said he, "^citizens — this word is sweet to
pronounce — I have already addressed other Frenchmen by
it, for all Frenchmen are brothers ; but on this spot I am
using it, I believe, toward real brothers, and I find my
whole family here in my compatriots of Haramont."

The women — there were some few among the auditory,
and they were not the most favorably disposed toward the
orator, for Pitou's knees were still tootliickand the calves
of his legs too thin, to produce an impression in his
favor on a feminine audience — the women, on hearing the
word family, thouglit of that poor Pitou, the orj^han
child, tlie poor abandoned lad, who, since the death of
his mother, had never had a meal that satisfied his hunger.
And this word, family, uttered by a youth who had none,
moved in sonic among them that sensitive fiber which
closes the reservoir of tears.

The exordium being finished, Pitou began the narrative,
the second head of an oration.

lie related his journey to Paris, the riots Avith regard to

558 TAKING THE BASTILE.

the busts, the taking of the Baatile, and the vengeance of
the people ; he passed lightly over the part he had taken
in the combats on the Place Vendome, the square before
the Palais Royal and in the Faubourg St, Antoino. But
the less he boasted, the greater did he appear in the eyes
of his compatriots ; and at the end of Pitou's narrative,
his helmet had become as large as the dome of the Invalides,
and his saber as long as the steeple of Haramont Church.

The narrative being ended, Pitou then proceeded to the
confirmation, that delicate operation by which Cicero rec-
ognized a real orator.

He proved that popular indignation had been justly ex-
cited against speculators ; he said two words of Messieurs
Pitt, father and son ; he explained the revolution by the
privileges granted to the nobility and to the clergy ;
finally he invited the people of Haramont to do that in
particular which the people of France had done generally
— that is to say, to unite against the common enemy.

Then he went on from the confirmation to the peroration,
by one of those sublime changes common to all great
orators.

He let fall his saber, and, while picking it up, he ac-
cidentally drew it from its scabbard.

This accident furnished him with a text for an incendi-
ary resolution, calling upon the inliabitants of Haramont
to take up arms, and to follow the example of the revolted
Parisians.

The people of Haramont were enthusiastic and replied
energetically.

The revolution was proclaimed with loud acclamations
throughout the village.

The men from Villcrs-Cotterets, who had remained at
the meeting, returned home, their hearts swelling with
the patriotic leaven, singing in the most threatening tones
toward the aristocrats, and with savage fury :

" Vive Henri Quatre !
Vivo ce roi vaillant I "

Rouget de I'lsle liad not then composed the *' Marseil-
laise," and the Federalists of '90 had not yet reawakened
the old ])opular " Ca Ira,'' seeing that they were thea
only in the year of grace 1789.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 559

Pitou thought that he had merely made a speech.
Pitou had made a revohition.

He re-entered his own house, regaled himself with a
piece of brown bread and the remains of his cheese, from
the Dauphin Hotel, which he had carefully stowed away
in his helmet, then he went and bought some brass wire,
made some snares, and when it was dark, went to lay them
in the forest.

That same night Pitou caught a good sized rabbit, and
a young one about four months old.

Pitou would have much wished to have set his wires for
hares, but he could not discern a single run^ and this
proved to him the correctness of the old sporting axiom,
"Dogs and cats, hares and rabbits, live not togetlier."

It would have been necessary to have gone three or four
leagues before reaching a country well stocked with hares,
and Pitou was rather fatigued ; his legs had done their
utmost the day before, for, besides the distance they had
performed, they had carried for the last four or five leagues
a man worn out with grief, and there is nothing so heavy
as grief to long legs.

Toward one in the morning he returned with his first
harvest ; he hoped to gather another after the jDassage in
the morning.

He went to bed, retaining within his breast remains of
so bitter a nature of that grief which had so much fatigued
his legs the day before, that he could only sleep six hours
consecutively upon the ferocious mattress, which the pro-
prietor himself called a shingle.

Pitou, therefore, slept from one o'clock to seven. The
sun was, therefore, shining upon him through his open
shutter while he was sleeping.

Tlirough this open shutter, thirty or forty inhabitants of
Haramont were looking at him as he slept.

He awoke as Turcnne did on his gun-carriage, smiled at
his compatriots, and asked them graciously why they had
come to him in such numbers and so early ?

One of them had been appointed spokesman. We shall
faithfully relate this dialogue. This man was a wood-
cutter, and his name Claude Tellicr.

'*Ango Pitou," said he, "we have been reflecting the
whole night ; citizens ought, in fact, as you said yes-
terday, to arm themselves in the cause of liberty."

560 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' I said so," replied Pitou, in ti firm tone, and which
aunounced that he was ready to maiutaiu what he had
said.

" Only, in order to arm ourselves the principal thing is
wanting."

" And what is that ? " asked Pi ton, with much interest.

'' Arms ! "

** Ah ! yes, that is true," said Pitou.

" We have, however, reflected enough not to allow our
reflections to he lost, and we will arm ourselves, cost what
it may."

"When I went away," said Pitou, "there were five
guns in Ilaramont — three muskets, a single-barreled fowl-
ing piece, and a doubled-barreled one."

"There are now only four," rejoined the orator, "one
of the fowling-pieces burst from old age a month ago."

" That must have been the fowling-piece which belonged
to Desire Mauiquet," said Pitou.

" Yes, and by token when she burst she carried ofi" two
of my fingers," said Desire Maniquet, holding above his
head his mutilated hand : " and as this accident happened
to me in the warren of that aristocrat who is called Mon-
sieur de Longpre, tlie aristocrats shall pay me for it."

Pitou nodded his head to show that he approved this
just revenge.

" We, therefore, have onlv four guns left," rejoined
Claude Tellier.

" Well, then, with four guns you have already enough
to arm five men," said Pitou.

" II ow do you make that out ?"

" Oh, the fifth will carry a pike. That is the way they
do at Paris ; for every four men armed with guns there is
always one man armed with a pike. Those pikes are very
convenient tilings; they serve to stick the heads upon,
which have been cut off."

" Oh ! oh ! " cried a loud, joyous voice, " it is to be
lioped that we shall not cut off iieads."

"No," gravely replied Pitou; "if we have only firm-
ness enough to reject the gold of Messrs, Pitt, father and
son. Put we were talking of guns ; let us not wander
from the question, as Monsieur Bailly says, llow many
men have we in Ilaramont capable of bearing arms ?
Have you counted them ? "

TAKING THE BASTILE. 561

"Yes."

*' Aud how many are you ? "

"We are thirty-two."

" Then there are twenty-eight muskets deficient ?"

" Which we shall never get,'' said the stout man with
the good-humored face.

" Ah !" said Pitou, " it is necessary to know that."

"And how s it necessary to know ? "

" Yes, I say it is necessary to know, because I know."

" What do you know ? "

"I know where they are to be procured."

" To be procured ? "

" Yes ; the people of Paris had no arms neither. Well,
Monsieur Marat, a very learned doctor, but very ugly, told
the people of Paris where arms were to be found ; the
people of Paris went where Monsieur Marat told them,
and there they found them."

"And where did Marat tell them to go?" inquired
Desire Maniquet.

" He told them to go to the Invalides."

*' Yes ; but we have no Invalides at Haramont."

" But I know a place in which there are more than a
hundred guns," said Pitou.

" And where is that ? "

"In one of the rooms of the Abbe Fortier's college."

"' The Abbe Fortier has a hundred guns ? He wishes,
then, to arm his singing-boys, the beggarly black cap ! '*
cried Claude Tellier.

Pitou had not a deep-seated affection for the Abbe
Fortier ; however, this violent outburst against his former
professor profoundly wounded him.

" Claude ! " cried he. " Claude ! "

"Well, what now?"

" I did not say that the guns belong to the Abbe Fortier."

" If they are in his house, they belong to him."

"That position is a false one. lam in the house of
Bastieu Godinet, and yet the house of Bastieu Ciodinet
does not belong to me."

" That is true," said Bastieu, replying, without giving
Pitou occasion to appeal to him directly.

" The guns, therefore, do not belong to the Abbe For-
tier," continued Pitou.

" Whose are they then ? "

562 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' They beloug to the township."

*' If they belong to the towuship, how does it Imppen
that they are in the Abbe Fortier's lioiuse ? "

" They are in the Abbe Fortier's house, because tlie
house iu which the Abbe Fortier lives belongs to the town-
ship, who gives it to him rent free because he says nuiss
and teaches the children of poor citizens gratis. Xow,
since the Abbe Fortier's house belongs to the township,
the township has a right to reserve a room in the house
that belongs to it, to put its muskets ; ah !"

'' That is true," said the auditors, " the township has
the right." '

" Well, then, let us see ; how are we to get hold of these
guns — tell us that ? "

The question somewhat einbarrassed Pitou, who
scratched his ear.

*' Yes, tell us quickly," cried another voice, " for we
must go to our work."

Pitou breathed again ; the last speaker had opened to
him a door of escape.

''Work!" exclaimed Pitou. "You speak of arming
yourselves for the defense of the country, and you think
of work!"

And Pitou accompanied his words with a laugh, so
ironical and so contemptuous that the Haramontese looked
at eacii other, and felt humiliated.

" We would not mind sacrificing a few days more,
should it be absolutely necessary," said the other, *' to
gain our liberty."

"To gain our liberty," cried Pitou, " it will be neces-
sary to sacrifice more than a day — we must sacrifice all
our days."

" Then," said Boniface, " when people are working for
liberty they are resting."

"lioniface," replied Pitou, with the air of Lafayette
when irritated, " those will never know how to be free who
know not how to trample prejudices under foot."

" As to myself," said Boniface, " I ask nothing better
than not to work ; but what is to be done, then, with
rej^^ard to eating ? "

" Do people eat?" cried Pitou, disdainfully.

" At llaramont they do so yet. Do they no longer eat
at Paris ? "

TAKING THE BASTILE. 563

" They eat when they have vanquished the tyrants,"
replied Pitou. " Did any one eat on the 14th of July ?
Did they even think of eating on that day ? No ; they
had not time even to think of it."

" Ah ! ah ! " cried some of the most zealous, " the tak-
ing of the Bastile must have been a fine sight."

*' But," continued Pitou, disdainfully, "as to drinking,
I will not say No ; it was so hot, and gunpowder had so
acrid a taste."

" But what had they to drink _?"

" What had the people to drink ? Why, water, wine,
and brandy. It was the women who had taken this in
charge."

" The women ? "

" Yes, and handsome women, too, who had made flags
of the front parts of their dresses.

' " Can it be possible ? " cried the auditors, with astonish-
ment.

''But, at all events," observed a skeptic, ''they must
have eaten the next day ? "

"I do not say that they did not," replied Pitou.

" Then," rejoined Boniface, triumphantly, "if they ate,
they must have worked."

"Monsieur Boniface," replied Pitou, "you are speak-
ing of things without understanding them. Paris is not
a hamlet. It is not composed of a heap of villagers, ac-
customed to think only of their bellies — ohedientia ventri,
as we say in Latin, we who are learned. No ; Paris, as
Monsieur de Mirabeau says, is the head of all nations ; it
is a brain which thinks for the whole world. The brain,
sir, never eats."

" That is true," thought the auditors.

" And yet," said Pitou, "the brain, though it does not
eat, still feeds itself."

" But then how does it feed itself ? " answered Boni-
face.

" Invisibly, with tlie nutriment of the body."

Here the Ilaramontese were quite at a loss ; the ques-
tion was too profound for them to understand.

" Explain this to us, Pitou," said Boniface.

" Tliat is easily done," replied Pitou. "Paris is the
brain, as 1 have said : the provinoes are the members ; the
provinces will work, drink, eat, and Paris will think."

5U TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Then I will leave the provinces and go to Paris," re-
joined tlie skeptical Boniface. " Will you come to Paris
with nie, my friendsi"

A portion of the audience burst into a loud laugh, aud
appeared to side with Boniface.

Pitou perceived that he would be discredited by this sar-
castic railer.

"Go, then, to Paris/' cried he, in his turn, ''and if
you find there a single face as ridiculous as yours, I will
buy of you such young rabbits as this at a louia apiece."

And with one hand Pitou held up the young rabbit he
had caught, and with the other made the louis which re-
mained of Dr. Gilbert's munificence jingle in his pocket.

I'itou this time had the laugh in his favor.

Upon this Boniface became positively purple with rage.

" Why, Master Pitou, you are playing the insolent to
call us ridiculous."

"Ridiculous thou art," majestically replied Pitou.

" But look at yourself," retorted Boniface.

" It would be but to little purpose," replied Pitou. " It
might see something as ugly as yourself, but never any-
thing half so stupid."

Pitou had scarcely said these words, when Boniface —
at Ilaramont tliey are almost as passionate as in Picardy —
struck at him with his fist, which Pitou adroitly parried,
but to which he replied by a kick in the true Parisian
fashion.

This kick was followed by a second, which sent the
skeptic Hying some few feet, when he fell heavily to the
ground.

Pitou bent down over his adversary, so as to give the
victory the most fatal consequences, and all were already
rushing to save jDOor Boniface, when Pitou, raising him-
self up :

" Learn," said he, " that the conquerors of the Bastilo
do not fight with fists. I have a saber, take another saber,
and let us end tlie matter at once."

Upon this Pitou drew his sword, forgetting, or perhaps
not forgetting, that the only saber in all Ilaramont was
his own, with the excei)tion of that of the rural guard, at
least two feet shorter than his own.

It is true that to establish a more perfect equilibrium
he put on his helmet.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 505

«

This greatness of soul electrified the assembly. It wiis
agreed by all that Boniface was a rascallion, a vile fellow,
an ass unworthy of being admitted to share iu any discus-
sion on public affairs.

And consequently he was expelled.

" You, see, then," said Pitou, " the image of revolution
at Paris, as Monsieur Prudhommc or Loustalot has said —
I think it was the virtuous Loustalot who said it — yes,
'twas he, 1 am nov/ certain of it :

'' ' The great appear to us to be great, 'Solely because we
arc upon our knees ; let us stand up.'"

This epigraph had not the slightest bearing on the ques-
tion in dispute, but perhaps, for that very reason, it pro-
duced a prodigious effect.

The skeptic Boniface, who was standing at a distance
of twenty paces, was struck by it, and returned to Pitou,
humbly saying to him :

"You must not be angry with us, Pitou, if we do not
understand liberty as "vvell as you do."

" It is not liberty," said Pitou, " but the rights of

man."

This was another blow with a sledge-hammer, with
which Pitou a second time felled the whole auditory.

** Decidedly," said Boniface, "you are a learned man,
and we pay homage to you. "

Pitou bowed.

*' Yes," said he, " education and experience have placed
me above you ; and if just now I spoke to you rather
harshly, it was from my friendship for you."

Loud applause followed this ; Pitou saw that he could
now give vent to his eloquence.

" You have just talked of work," said he, '' but do you
know what work is ? To you, labor consists iu splitting
wood, in reaping the harvest, in picking up beech-mast,
in tying up wheat-sheaves, in placing stones one above
another, and consolidating them with cement. In your
opinion, I do not work at all. AVell, tiien, you are mis-
taken, for I alone labor much more than you do all to-
gether, for I am meditating your emancipation, for I am
dreaming of your liberty, of your equality. A moment of
my time is, therefore, of more value than a hundred of
your (lays. The oxen who plow the ground do but one and
the same thing ; but the man who thinks surpasses all tlio

566 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Btrength of matter. I, by myself, am Avorth the whole of
you. Look at Monsieur Lafayette, he is a thin, fair man,
not much taller than Claud Tcllier. He has a j^ointf'd
uose, thin legs, and arms as snuUl as the hack joints of
this chair. As to his hands and feet, it is not worth while
to mention them. A man miglit as well ho without. AVell,
this man has carried t vo worlds on his shoulders, which is
one more than Atlas did, and his little hands have broken
the chains of America and France.

" 'Now, as his arms have done all this, arms not thicker
than tlie back railing of a chair, only imagine to yourselves
what arms like nnne can do."

And Piton bared his arms, which were as knotty as the
trunk of a holly-tree.

And, having drawn this parallel, he paused, well assured
that he had produced, without coming to a regular con-
clusion, an immense effect.

And he had produced it.

CHAPTER XXXIL

The greater portion of events which happen to man,
and which confer on him groat happiness or great honors,
are almost always brought about from his having fervently
desired, or much disdained.

If this maxim were duly applied to events and to men
cited in history, it would be found that it possesses not
only profundity, but also truth.

We shall, however, content ourselves, without having
recourse to proofs, with applying it to Ange Pitou, our
man and our history.

In fact, Pitou, if we arc allowed to retrograde a few
steps, and to return to the wound which he had received
straight to the heart — Pitou had, in fact, after the dis-
covery he had made on the borders of the forest, been
seized with a withering disdain for the tilings of this nether
world.

He who had hoped to find blossom within his heart that
rare and precious plant which mortals denominate Love —
lie who had retunud to his owp. province with a helmet
and a saber, proud of tlius associating Mars and Venus, as

TAKING THE BASTILE. 567

was said by his illustrious compatriot, Demoustier, in his
*' Letters to Emilie on Mythology," found himself com-
pletely taken aback and very unhappy on perceiving that
there existed at Villers-Cotterets and its neighborhood
more lovers than were necessary.

He who had taken so active a part in the crusade of the
Parisians against the nobility, found himself but very in-
significant in o])position lo the country nobility, represented
by M. Isidor de Cluirny.

Alas ! so handsome a youth, a man likely to please even
at first sight, a cavalier who wore buckskin breeches and
a velvet riding-coat.

How would it be possible to contend against such a
man ?

With a man who had long riding-boots, and spurs on
the heels of those boots — with a man whose brother many
people still call monseigneur.

IIow was it possible to contend against such a rival ?
How could he avoid at once feeling shame and admiration?
two feelings which, to the heart of the lover, inflict a
double torture — a torture so frightful that it has never yet
been decided whether a jealous man prefers a rival of higher
or lower condition than himself.

Pitou, therefore, but too well knew the pangs of jeal-
ousy, the wounds of which are incurable and fertile in
agony, and of whicli up to this time the ingenuous heart
of our hero had remained ignorant — jealousy, a plant of
marvelous and venomous growth, which springs up with-
out seed being sown, from a soil that had never seen ger-
minate any noxious passion, not even self-love, that evil
root which chokes up even the most sterile lands.

A heart thus tortured stands in need of much philosophy,
in order to regain its habitual calmness.

Was Pitou a philosopher ? He who the day following
that on which he had experienced this sensaiiion, could
think of waging war against the hares and rabbits of His
Highness the Duke of Orleans, and the day after that, of
making tlie long harangues we have reported ?

Was his heart, then, as hard as fiint, from which every
fresh blow draws a spark ? Or did it possess only the soft
resistance of a sponge, which has the quality of absorbing
tears and of mollifying, without receiving a wound, the
shock of every misfortune ?

5(58 TAKING THE BASTILE.

This, the fnture will indubitably testify ; therefore, let
us not prejudge, but go on with our story.

After having received the visit we have related, and his
harangues being terminated, Pitou, compelled by his ap-
petite to attend to minor matters, set to work and cooked
his young rabbit, regretting that it was not a hare.

But, in fact, had the rabbit been really a hare, Pitoa
would not have eaten, but would have sold it.

That would not have been a very trilling concern. A
hare, according to its size, is worth from eighteen to
twenty-four sous ; and although he was still the possessor
of a few louis given to him by Dr. Gilbert, Pitou, without
being as avaricious as his aunt Angelique, had a good dose
of economy, which he had inherited from his mother.
Pitou would, therefore, have added eighteen sous to hii^
treasure, which would thus have been increased instead of
diminished.

For Pitou had justly reflected that it was not necessary
for a man to make repasts which would cost liim one day
half a crown, another eighteen sous. He was not a Lucul-
his ; and Pitou said that with the eighteen sous his hare
would have broiigiit him, he could have lived during a
whole week.

Now, during that week, supposing that ho had caught
a hare on the first day, he m' " "?ry well have taken
three daring the six following ....yrf, or, rather, the six
following nights. In a week, therefore, he would have
gained food for a month.

Following up this calculation, forty-eight hares would
have sufficed for a year's keep ; all the rest would have
been clear profit.

Pitou entered into this economical calculation while lie
was eating his rabbit; which, instead of bringing; him
anything, cost him a sou's worth of butter and a sou's
worth of lard. As to the onions, he had gleaned them
upon the common land.

" After a repast, the fireside or a walk," says the prov-
erb. After his repast, Pitou went into the forest to seek
a snug corner where he could take a nap.

It is scarcely necessary to say that as soon as the un-
fortunate youth had finished talking politics and found
himself alone, he had incessantly before his eyes the spec-
tacle of M. Isidor making love to Mile. Catherine,

TAKING THE BASTILE. 569

The oaks and beech-trees trembled with his sighs ;
nature, which always smiles ou well-filled stomachs, made
one exception in regard to Piton, and appeared to him a
vast dark desert, in which there remained only rabbits,
hares, and deer.

Once hidden beneath tlie tall trees of his natal forest,
Pitou, inspired by their cool and invigorating shade, be-
came more firm in his heroic resolution, and this was to
disappear from before the eyes of Catherine — to leave her
altogether free, and not to affect Jiimself extravagantly as
to her preference of another, that he might not be more
humiliated than was necessary by invidious comparison.

It was a highly painful effort to abstain from seeing
Mile. Catherine ; but a man ought to be a man.

Moreover, this Avas not precisely the case in question.

The question was not exactly, that he should no more
see Mile. Catherine, but that he should not be seen by her.

Now, what was there to prevent the contemned lover
from carefully concealing himself and catching a glance
of the cruel fair one ? Nothing.

From Haramont to the farm — what was the distance ?
Scarcely a league and a half — that is to say, a few strides —
that was all.

Although it would have been base on the part of Pitou
to have continued his attentions to Catherine after what
he had seen, it would be so much the more adroit in him
to continue to ascertain her acts and conduct, thanks to a
little exercise, which could not be but favorable to Pitou's
health.

Moreover, that portion of the forest behind the farm and
extending toward Boursonneville abounded in hares.

Pitou would go at night to lay his wires, aiid the next
morning from the top of some high hillock he would cast
his eyes over the plain and watch Mile Catlierine's doings.
This he had the right to do ; this, to a certain point, was
his duty, being the authorized agent, as he undoubtedly
was, of father Billot.

Thus having consoled himself, and, as it were, in spite
of himself, Pitou thought he might cease sighing. He
dined off an enormous slice of bread he had brought with
him, and when the evening had closed in, he laid a dozen
wires and threw himself down upon the heather, still warm
from the sun's rays.

670 TAKING THE BASTILE.

There he slept like a man in utter despair — that is to
say. his sleep was almost as undisturbed as that of death.

The coolness of the night awoke him ; he went to ex-
amine his wires. Nothing had been taken ; but Pitou
calculated always more upon the morning passage ; only,
as his head felt somewhat heavy, he determined on re-
turning to his lodgings and looking to his wires the fol-
lowing day.

But this day, which to him had passed by so devoid of
events and intrigues, had been passed in a very different
manner by the inhabitants of the hamlet, who had em-
ployed it in reflecting and in making combinations.

It might have been seen toward the middle of that day
which Pitou had passed dreaming in the forest — the wood-
cutters, we say, might have been seen leaning contem-
platively upon tlieir hatchets ; the threshers, with their
flails suspended in the air, meditating ; the joi)iers stop-
ping their planes upon a half-smoothed plank.

Pitou was the first great cause of all this loss of time ;
Pitou had been the breatii of discord, which had stirred
these straws which began to whirl about confusedly.

And he, the occasion of all this agitation, had not even
thought one moment on the subject.

But at the moment when he was going toward his own
lodging, although the clock had struck ten, and usually at
that hour not a single light was to be seen, not an eye was
still open in the village, he perceived a very unaccustomed
scene around the house which he resided in. He saw a
number of men seated in groups, a number standing in
groups, several groups walking up and down.

The aspect of these groups was nltogetlier singular.

Pitou, without knowing why, imagined that all these
people were talking of him.

And when he passed through the street, they all ap-

})eared as if struck by an electric shock, and pointed at
lim as he passed.

" What can the matter be witli them all ?" said Pitou
to himself. " I have not my helmet on."

And he modestly retired to liis own lodging, after hav-
ing exchanged salutations with a few of the villagers as
he pas?od by them.

He had scarcely sliut the door of his house, when ho
thought he hoard a slight knock upon the door-post.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 571

Piton was not in the habit of ligliting a candle to un-
dress by, A candle was too great a luxury for a man who
paid only six livres a year for his lodgings, and who, hav-
ing no books, could not read.

But it was certain that some one was knocking at his
door.

He raised the latch.

Two of the young inhabitants of the village familiarly
entered his abode.

"Why, Pitou, you have not a candle," said one of them.

" No," replied Pitou ; "of what use would it be ?"

" Why, that one might see."

" Oh ! I see well at night ; I am Xyctalops."

And in proof of this he added :

" Good evening, Claude ! Good evening, Desire."

"Well ! " they both cried, "here we are, Pitou !"

" This is a kind visit ; what do you desire of me, my
friends ? ^

" Come out into the light," said Claude.

*' Into the light of what ? There is no moon."

"Into the light of heaven."

"You have, then, something to say to me ?"

"Yes, we would speak with you, Ange."

And Claude emphasized these words with a singular
expression.

"Well, let us go, then," said Pitou.

And the three went out togetlier.

They walked on until they reached the first open space
in the road ; Ange Pitou still not knoM'ing what they
wanted of him.

" Well ? " inquired Pitou, seeing that his two com-
panions stopped.

"You see, now, Ange," said Claude, "here we are.
Desire Maniquet and myself. We manage to lead all our
com))anions in the country. Will you be one of us ?"

"To do what?"

"Ah ! that is the question. It is to "

" To do what ?" said Pitou, drawing himself uj? to his
full height.

" To conspire," murmured Claude in Pitou 's car.

"Ah ! ah ! as they do at Paris," said Pitou, jeeringly.

The fact is that he was fearful of the word, and of the
echo of the word, even in the midst of the forest.

672 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Come, now, explain yourself," said Pitoii to Claude,
after a short pause.

''This is the case," said the latter. "Come nearer,
Desire, you who are a poacher to your very soul, and know
all the noises of the day and night, of the plain and of the
forest, look around and see if we have been followed ;
listen whether there be any one attempting to overhear us."

Desire gave an assenting nod, took a tolerably wide cir-
cuit round Pi ton and Claude, and having peeped into
every bush and listened to every murmur, returned to them.

"You may speak out," said he, " there is no one near
us."

" My friends ! " rejoined Claude, " all the townships of
France, as Pitou has told us, desire to be armed, and on
the footing of Xational Guards."

**That is true," said Pitou.

*' Well, then, why should Haramont not be armed like
the other townships ? "

** You said why, only yesterday', Claude," replied Pitou,
**when I proposed my resolution that we sliould arm
ourselves. Haramont is not armed, because Haramont
has no muskets."

" Oh ! as to muskets, we need not be uneasy about them,
since you know where they are to be had."

" I know ! I kiiow ! " said Pitou, who saw at what Claude
was aiming, «, who felt the danger of the proceeding.

"Well," continued Claude, " all the patriotic young
fellows of the village have been consulting together to-
day."

" Good ! "

"And there are thirty-three of us."

"That is the tliird of a hundred less one," added Pitou.

"' Do you know the manual exercise ? " inquired Claude.

" Do 1 not ! " exclaimed I'itou, who did not even know
how to shoulder arms.

" Good ! And do you know how to maneuver a com-
pany ? "

"I have seen General Lafayette numeuvering forty
thousand men at least ten times," disdainfully replied
Pitou.

" That is all right," said Desire, tiretl of remaining
silent, and who, without intending to presume, wished to
put in a word in his turn.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 573

*' "Well, then, will 3"on command ns ? " said Clande to
Piton.

" Who — I ? " exclaimed Pitou, starting with surprise.

''Yes, you — yourself."

And the two conspirators intently eyed Pitou.

*' Oh, you hesitate ?"

<'Why "

" You are not, then, a good patriot," said Desire.

*' Oh ! that, for example "

" There is something, then, that you are afraid of ?"

"What, I — I, a conqueror of the Bastile — a man to
whom a medal is awarded ?"

^' You have a medal awarded you ? "

'' I shall have one as soon as the medals have been struck.
Monsieur Billot has promised to apply for mine in my
name."

''He will have a medal. Wo shall have a chief who
has a medal ! " exclaimed Claude, in a transport of joy.

"Come, now, speak out !" said Desire ; "will you ac-
cept the appointment ? "

" Do you accept ?" asked Claude.

" Well, then, yes ; I will accept it," said Pitou, carried
away hy his enthusiasm, and also, perhaps, by a feeling
wliich was awakening within him, and which is called
pride.

"It is agreed: from to-morrow morning you Avill he
our commander."

" And Avhat shall I command you to do ? "

" Onr exercise, to he sure."

"Ami the muskets ?"

" Why, since you know where there are muskets "

. " Oh ! yes, at the house of the Abbe Fortier."

"Undoubtedly."

"Only it is very likely the Abbe Fortier will refuse to
let me have them."

"Well, then, you will do as the patriots did at the Tn-
validos — you will take them.

'^What— I, alone?"

"You will have our signatures, and, should it be neces-
sarv, you shall have our hands, too. We Avill cause a ris-
ing in Villcrs-Cotterets ; but we will have them."

Pitou shook his head.

" The Abbe Fortier is a very obstinate man," said he.

674 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Pooh ! you were his most favorite pupil ; he woukl not
be able to refuse you anything."

"It is eaoy to perceive that you do not know him I"
cried Pitou, with a sigh.

'•' How ! do you believe the old man would refuse ? "

** He would refuse them even to a squadron of the Royal
Germans. lie is dreadfully obstinate, in jnstiim et
tenacem. But I forgot, you do not even understand Latin,"
added Pitou, with much compassion.

But the two Ilaramontese did not allow themselves to be
dazzled either by the quotation or the apostrophe.

'■ Ah I in good truth," said Desire, ''' we have chosen
an excellent chief, Claude ; he is alarmed at everything."

Claude shook his head.

Pitou perceived that he was compromising his high
position ; he remembered that fortune always most favored
those who possess some audacity.

" Well, be it so," said he ; " I will consider it."

"You, then, will manage the affair of the muskets ?"

"I will promise to do all I can."

An expression of satisfaction was uttered by his two
friends, replacing the slight discontent they had before
manifested.

" Ho ! ho ! " said Pitou to himself, " these men want to
dictate to me, even before I am their chief ; " what will
they do, then, when I shall be so in reality ?"

" Do all you can," said Claude, shaking his head. " Oh !
oh ! that is not enough."

"If that is not enough," replied Pitou, " try you to do
more ; I give up my command to you. Go and see what
you can make of the Abbe Fortier and his cat-o'-nine-
tails."

" That would be well worth while," said Maniquet, dis-
dainfully. " It is a pretty thing, indeed, for a man to re-
tnrn from Paris, with a helmet and a saber, and then to
be afraid of a cat-o'-nine-tails."

"A helmet and a saber are not a cuirass ; and even if
they were, the Abbe Fortier would still find a place on
which to apply his cat-o'-nine-tails."

Claude and Desire appeared to comprehend this obser-
vation.

" Come, now, Pitou, my son," saiil Claude. (My son
is a term of endearment much used in the country.)

TAKING THE BASTILE. 575

'*Well, then, it shall be so," said Pitou ; '' but, zounds !
you must be obedient."

*' You will see how obedient we shall be," said he, giving
a wink to Desire.

*'Only," added Desire, *'you must engage with regard
to the muskets "

*' Oh, that is agreed upon," cried Pitou, interrupting
him, who was in truth extremely uneasy at the task im-
posed upon him ; but whom, however, ambition was coun-
seling to venture on deeds which required great daring.

'' You promise, then ?" said Claude.

"You swear it ? " said Desire.

Pitou stretched forth his hand. His two companions
did the same.

And thus it was, by the light of the stars, and in an
opening of the forest, that the insurrection was declared
in the department of the Aisne, by the three Haramontese,
unwitting plagiarists of William Tell and his three com-
panions.

The fact is, that Pitou dimly foresaw that, after all the
perils and troubles he would have to encounter, he would
have the happiness of appearing gloriously invested with
'the insignia of a commander of the National Guard, be-
fore the eyes of Catherine ; and the insignia appeared
to him to be of a nature to cause her to feel, if not re-
morse, at least some regret for the conduct she had pur-
sued.

Thus consecrated by the will of his electors, Pitou re-
turned to his house, meditating on the ways and means by
which he could procure arms for his thirty-three National
Guards.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The whole of that night, Pitou was so absorbed in re-
flecting oil the great honor which had befallen him, that
he forgot to visit his wires.

The next morning he donned his helmet and bncklocl on
his great saber, and set out manfully toward Villers-
Cotterets.

It was just striking six o'clock when Pitou reached the
square before the chateau, and he modestly knocked at

576 TAKING THE BASTILE.

the small door which opened into the Abb4 Fortier's
garden.

Pitou had knocked loud enough to satisfy his conscience,
but gently enongli not to be lieard from the house.

lie had hoped thus to gain a quarter of an hour's re-
spite, and during that time to summon up some flowers of
oratory wherewith to adorn the speech he had prepared
for the Abbe Fortier.

But his astonishment was great when, notwithstanding
his having knocked so gently, he saw the gate at once
opened ; but his astonishment soon ceased, Avhen, in the

{)erson who had opened it, he recognized Sebastian Gil-
)ert.

The lad was walking in the garden, studying his lesson
by the sun's first rays — or, rather, we should say, pretend-
ing to study ; for the open book was hanging listlessly in
his hand, and the thoughts of the youth were capriciously
wandering after those whom he most loved in the world.

Sebastian uttered a Joyous cry on perceiving Pitou.

They embraced each other. The boy's first words were
these :

" Have you received news from Paris ? "

"No ; have you any ?" inquired Pitou.

*' Oh, I have received some," said Sebastian. "My
father has written me a delightful letter.''

" Ah ! " cried Pitou.

" And in which," continued the lad, " there is a word
for you."

And taking the letter from his breast-pocket, he handed
it to Pitou.

" ]\ S. — Billot recommends Pitou not to annoy or dis-
tract the attention of the people at the farm."

" Oh I" said Pitou, " that is a recommendation which,
as it regards me, is altogether useless. Tliere is no one at
the farm whom I can either annoy or amuse."

Then he added to himself, sighing still more deeply :

"It was to Monsieur Isidor that these words ought to
have been addressed."

He, however, soon recovered his self-possession, and re-
turned the letter to Sebiiatian.

" Where is the abbo ?" he inquired.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 577

Sebastian bent his ear toward the house, and, although
the width of the courtyard and the garden separated him
from the staircase which creaked beneath the steps of tlie
worthy priest :

** Why," said he, " he is just coming down-stairs.'*

Pitou went from the garden into the courtyard, and it
was only then that he heard the heavy footsteps of the
abbe.

The worthy professor was reading his newspaper as ha
came down-stairs.

His faithful cat-o'-nine- tails was, us usual, hanging by
his side.

With his nose close to the newspaper — for he knew by
heart the number of steps and every inequality in the wall
of liis old house — the abbe almost ran against Ange Pitou,
who had assumed the most majestic air he could put on,
in order to contend with his political antagonist.

But we must first of all say a few words as to the posi-
tion of the Abbe Fortior, which might have appeared
tedious in any other page, but which here find their natu-
ral place.

They will explain how it was that the thirty or forty
muskets which have been so much talked about happened
to be in the Abbe Fortier's charge ; which muskets had
become the object of the ambition of Pitou and of his two
accomplices, Claude and Desire.

The Abbe Fortier, who liad formerly been the almoner
or sub-almoner of the chateau, as we have already had
occasion to explain elsewhere, had, in course of time, and,
above all, with that patient fixity of ideas inherent in
ecclesiastics, become sole intendant of what in theatrical
language is called the properties of the chateau.

Besides the sacred vases, besides the library, he had re-
ceived in charge all the hunting apparatus of tlie Duke of
Orleans, Louis Philippe, the father of Philippe, who was
afterward called Egalite. Some of tliis apparatus had
been in the family as far back as the reigns of Louis XIIL
and Henri III. All these articles had been artistically
arranged by him in one of the galleries of the chdteau,
which had been allotted to him for this express purpose.
h\ order to give them a more picturesque appearance, lie
had formed them into stars, the center being shields, sur-
rounded by boar spears, hunting-knives, and short mus-

25— Dumas— Vol. IX.

578 TAKING THE BASTILE.

kets, richly iulaid, and inunufactured during the time of
the League.

The door of this gallery was formidably defended by
two small cannon of plated bronze, given by Louis XIV.
to his brother Monsieur.

Besides these there were about fifty musketoons, brought
as trophies by Joseph Philippe from the battle of Usliant,
and had been presented by him to the municipality of
Villers-Cotterets ; and the municipality, as we have said,
having furnished the Abbe Fortier with a house free of
rent, had placed these muskets, not knowing what to do
with them, in the collegiate house.

Such was the treasure guarded by the Dragon, named
Fortier, and threatened by the Jason, named Ange
Pitou.

The little arsenal of the chateau was sufficiently cele-
brated in the country to make people desire to obtain
possession of it at little cost.

But, as we have said, the abbe, being a vigilant Dragon,
did not appear disposed willingly to give up, to any Jason
whatsoever, the golden apples which his llesperides con-
tained.

Having said this much, let us return to Pitou.

He very gracefully bowed to the Abbe Fortier, ac-
companying his bow with a slight cough, such as we use
to attract the attention of persons who are naturally
absent, or who are preoccupied.

The Abbe Fortier raised his nose from the newspaper.

" Well, I declare," said he, '' 'tis Pitou.'*

" To serve you, should I be capable of doing so," cour-
teously replied Ange.

The abbe folded up his newspaper, or, rather, closed it,
as he would have done a portfolio, for in those happy days
the newspapers were still small pamphlets.

Then, liaving folded up his paper, he stuck it into his
belt on the opposite side to his cat-o'-nine-tails.

** Ah, yes ; out in that lies the misfortune," replied the
abbe, jeeringly, "seeing that you are not capable."

" Oh ! most worthy abbe."

**Do you hear me, Mr. Hypocrite ?"

*' Oh, good abbe 1 "

** Do you hear me, Mr. Revolutionist ? "

" Come, now, this is good ; for before I have spoken

TAKING THE BASTILE. 579

even a single word, you get into a passion with me. This
is but a bad beginning, abbe."

Sebastian — who well knew what the Abbe Fortier had,
for the last two days, been saying to every one who came
near him about Pitou, thought it better not to be present
during the quarrel which must necessarily ensue between
his sclioolmaster and his friend — stole away as quick as
he could.

Pitou observed Sebastian's escape with a certain degree
of sorrow. He was not a very vigorous ally, but he was a
youth of the same political communion with himself.

And, therefore, when he perceived him stepping
through the door, he could not avoid uttering a sigh —
then, turning to the abbe :

" Come, now. Monsieur Fortier," said he, "why do you
call me a revolutionist ? Would yon insinuate that I am
the cause of the revolution ? "

'' You have lived with those who are carrying it on."

'' Good Monsieur Abbe," said Pitou, with supreme dig-
nity, " the thoughts of every man are free."

"Ah, indeed !"

" Est penes hominem arbitrium est natio.'*

" Why, really," cried the abbe, "you know Latin, then,
you clown ? "

'•' I know what you taught me of it,'' modestly replied
Pitou.

" Yet revised, corrected, augmented, and embellished
with barbarisms."

'^ Good again, Monsieur Abbe — barbarisms ! and who is
there who does not commit them ? "

*' Vile fellow !" cried tlie abbe, evidently wounded by
this apparent tendency of Pitou's to generalize. " What,
do you believe that I am guilty of barbarisms ?"

" You would commit them in the eyes of a man who
was a bettor Latin scholar than yourself."

" Only hear that ! " cried the abbe, turning pale with
anger, and yet struck Avith the reasoning, which was not
devoid of point.

Then, in a melancholy tone :

"There, in two words, is the system of these vile
wretches ; they destroy and degrade, and who profits by
it ? They know not even themselves — it is to the profit of
the unknown. Come, now. Monsieur Dunce, speak out

580 TAKING THE BASTILE.

freely — do you know any one who is a better Latin scholar
than I am ?"

" No ; but there may be many, although I do not kuo«r
them — 1 do not know everything."

"Zounds ! I believe you."

Piton made the sign of the cross.

*' What are you doing there, libertine ?'*

'•'You swore. Monsieur Abbe, and I crossed myself."

" Why, rascal, have you come here to tympanize
me ? "

" To tympanize you ! " repeated Pitou.
Ah ! good — now again you do not comprehend-

*'0h ! yes, I uuderstand it well enough. Ah ! tliauks
to you, I know the roots of words — tympanize — tympanum
— drum ; it comes from the Greek tympanon, drum or
bell."

The abbe appeared perfectly astounded.

" Root, typos, mark, vestige ; and, as Lancelot says, in
his garden of Greek roots, typos, the form which impresses
itself, which word evidently comes from topto, to strike.
There you have it."

" Ah I ah I rascallion," cried the abbe, more and more
ilumfounded. " It seems that you yet know something,
even what you did not know."

" Pooh ! " ejaculated Pitou, with affected modesty.

"Ilowdidit happen that during the whole time you
were with me you could not answer me as you have now
done?"

" Because, during the time I was with you. Abbe For-
tier. you brutalized me — because, by your despotism you
repelled my intelligence, imprisoned within my memory
all that liberty has since brought forth from it. Yes,
liberty," continued Pitou, becoming more energetic as he
proceeded ; " do vou hear me ? — liberty ! "

'*Ah ! rascal.""

*' Monsieur Professor," said Pitou, with an air which
was not exempt from threat, " Monsieur Professor, do not
insult me. Contutnelia non argumentum, says an orator ;
insult is not reasoning."

"I think that the fellow," cried the abbe, in great
fury — "I think that the fellow imagines it necessary to
translate his Latin to me."

'*It is not my Latin, Monsieur Abbe, it is Cicero's — that

TAKING THE BASTILE. 581

is to say, the Latin of a man who assuredly would have
thought that you made as many barbarisms in comparison
with him, as I do in comparison with you."

** You do not pretend, I hope," cried the Abbe Fortier,
somewhat shaken on his pedestal — '*you do not pretend,
I hope, that I should discuss with you."

** And why not ? If, fi"om the discussion, light is to
proceed — ahstrusum versusilicum."

** How ! how ! " exclaimed the Abbe Fortier ; '' why,
really, the fellow has been in the revolutionary school."

*' How can that be, since you yourself have said that the
revolutionists are fools and ignoramuses ?'"

'•'Yes, I do say so."

** Then you are making a false reasoning, my worthy
abbe, and your syllogism is badly founded."

" Badly founded ! What say you ? I have badly
founded a syllogism ? "

"Undoubtedly, Monsieur I'Abbe. Pitou reasons and
speaks well — Pitou has been to the revolutionary school —
the revolutionists consequently reason and speak well.
There is no getting out of that."

" Animal ! brute ! simpleton !"

" Do not molest me by your words. Monsieur I'Abbe.
Ohjurgatio imbellem animtwi arguit — weakness betrays it-
self by auger."

The abbe shrugged up his shoulders.

"Answer me," said Pitou.

" You say that the revolutionists speak well and reason
well. But tell me the name of any one of those wretches
who knows how to read and write."

"That is blinking the point in discussion; but I will
answer you, nevertheless. I can read aud write," cried
Pitou, with assurance.

" Read — I will admit that — and yet, I know not — but as
to writing "

"Writing !" cried Pitou.

" Yes, you can write ; but without orthography.**

" That is to be seen."

" Will you lay a wager that you will write a page under
my dictation without making four blunders ?"

" Will you lay a wager, you, that you will write half a
page under my dictation, without making two ?"

" Oh ! that, for example "

582 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" Well, let us to M'ork. I will pick you out some parti-
ciples and reflective verbs. I will season you up all these
with a certain number of thats which I know of. I accept
the wager."

" If 1 had time," said the abb^.

** You would lose."

"Pitou ! Pitou ! remember the proverb, Pitonins An-
gel us asinus est."

" Pooh ! proverbs ! there are proverbs made for every-
body. Do you know the one which Avas sung into my
ears by the reeds of the "Wualu as I passed by them ?"

"No; but I should be curious to know it. Master
Midas."

" Fortieriis Abhas forte foi^tis."

" Sir ! " exclaimed the abbe.

** A free translation — the Abb6 Fortier is not in his
forte every day."

" Fortunately," said the abbe, ''accusing is of slight
importance ; it is the proof that condemns."

"Alas ! good Monsieur Abbe, that would be perfectly
easy ; let us see, what do yon teach your pupils ? "

" Why "

"Allow me to follow up the argument. What do you
teach your pupils ? "

"Why, what I know."

" Good ! remember that your answer was, * what I
know.'"

" Well, yes, what I know," said the abbe, somewhat
shaken ; for he felt that during his absence this singular
combatant had learned some unknown thrusts. " Yes, I
did say so ; and what then ?"

" Well, then, since you teach your pupils what you
know, tell me what it is that you do know ?"

" Latin, French, Greek, history, geography, arithmetic,
algebra, astronomy, botany, and numismatics "

" Anvthing more ? " inquired Pitou.

" Wh> "

"Try to find something else."

"Drawing."

"Go on."

** Architecture."

" Go on."

" Mechanics."

TAKING THE BASTILE. 583

** A branch of mathematics — but that matters not — go
on."

"But tell me, what are you aiming at ?"

"■ Simply at this : you have stated pretty largely the
account of what you do know ; now state the account of
what you do not know."

The abbe shuddered.

"Ah!" said Pitou, "I clearly see that to do this I
must assist you. Well, then, you do not know either
German, or Hebrew, or Arabic, or Sanscrit, four mother
languages. I speak not of the subdivisions, which are
innumerable. You know nothing of natural history, of
chemistry, of physics "

** Monsieur Pitou "

" Do not interrupt me ; you know nothing of rectilinear
trigonometry ; you are ignorant of medicine ; you know
nothing of acoustics, of navigation ; you are ignorant of
everything that regards the gymnastic sciences."

"What say yon ?"

" I said gymnastics, from the Greek gymnaza exercm,
which comes from gyninos, naked, because the athletes
were naked when they exercised."

" And yet it was I who taught you all this ! " cried the
abbe, almost consoled at the victory of his pupil.

"That is true."

"It is fortunate that you even acknowledge it."

" And with gratitude ? We were saying, then, that
you are ignorant of "

" Enough. It is certain that I am ignorant of much
more than I know."

" Therefore, you acknowledge that many men know
more than you do."

" That is possible."

" It is certain ; and the more a man knows, the more
does he perceive that he knows nothing. It was Cicero
who said this."

" Conclude."

"I conclude -"

" Let us hear your conclusion ; it will be a fine one."

" I conclude that in virtue of your relative ignorance,
you ought to be more indulgent as to the relative knowl-
edge of other men. This constitutes a double virtue ; a
duplex virtue, which we are assured was that of Fenelon,

584 TAKING THE BASTILE.

who assuredly knew quite as much as you do ; and that is
the Christian charity of humility."

The abbe uttered a perfect roar of anger.

" Serpent ! " he exclaimed, " you are a serpent ! "

"You insult me, but do not answer me; this was the
reply of one of the seven wise men of Greece ; I would
say it in Greek, but I have already said it, or something
nearly to the same jjurpose, in Latin."

" Good ! " said the abbe, '* this is another effect of rev-
olutionary doctrines."

•* And in what wav ? "

"They have persuaded you you were my equal.**

" And even should they have persuaded me of that, it
would not give you the right of making a grammatical

error."

" What say you ? "

" I say that you have just made an enormous fault,
master."

" Ah ! that is very polite, indeed — and what fault did
I commit ?"

"Itis this: You said, 'revolutionary jJi'iuciples have
persuaded vou you were my equal.'"

'' AVell— and what then ? "

" "Well — were is in the imperfect tense."

"Yes, undoubtedly."

*' It was the present yon should have used."

" Ah ! " cried the abbe, blushing.

" Only translate the phrase into Latin, and you will
see what an enormous solecism the verb will give you in
the imperfect tense."

** Pitou ! Pitou '."exclaimed the abbe, imagining that
there was something supernatural in this astounding erudi-
tion— " Pitou, which of the demons is it that inspires you
with all these attacks against an old man and against the
church ? "

" Why, my good master," replied Pitou, somewhat
moved by the tone of real despair in which these words
had been pronounced, " it is not a demon who inspires
me, nor do I attack you. Only you treat me Jis if I were
a perfect fool, and yon forget that all men are equals."

The abbe was again irritated.

** It is that which I never will permit ; I cannot allow
snch blasphemies to be uttered in my presence. Y^ou —

TAKING THE BASTILE. 585

yoa the equal of a man whom God and study have taken
sixty years to form ? *'

" Well, then, ask Monsieur de Lafayette, who has pro-
claimed the rights of man/*

" Yes, yes ; cite as an authority an unfaithful Bubject
of the king — the torch of all this discord — the traitor ! "

''*Hey !" cried Pitou, horrified. "Monsieur de La-
fayette an unfaithful subject ! Monsieur de Lafayette a
firebrand of discord ! Monsieur de Lafayette a traitor !
Wh)'^, it is you, abbe, who are blaspheming. Why, you
must have lived shut up in a box during the last three
months. You do not know, then, that this unfaithful
subject of the king is the only one who serves the king —
that this torch of discord is the pledge of public peace —
that this traitor is the best of Frenchmen ?"

" Oh ! " exclaimed the abbe, " could I ever have believed
that royal authority would fall so low ? A worthless fellow
like that " — and he pointed to Pitou, '* to invoke the name
of Lafayette as in ancient times they invoked the names
of Aristides and of Phocion."

*' It is very fortunate for you, Monsieur I'Abbe, that
the people do not hear you," said Pitou, imprudently.

"Ah!" exclaimed the abbe, with triumph, "you at
length reveal yourself — you threaten. The people — yes,
the people who basely murdered the king's officers — the
people, who even tore out the entrails of their victims.
Yes, Monsieur de Lafayette's people— Monsieur Bailly's
people — Monsieur Pitou's people. "Well, then, why do
you not instantly denounce me to the revolutionists of
Villers-Cotterets ? Why do you not turn up your sleeves
to hang me on the first post ? Come now, Pitou maete
animo. Pitou, sursum — sursum, Pitou. Come, come,
where is your ropc'? where is your gallows ? There is the
executioner ; maete animo gencrare Pitoe! "

" Sic itur ad astra," added Pitou, muttering ; but solely
with the intention of finishing the line, and not perceiving
that he was making a pun worthy of a cannibal.

But he was compelled to perceive it by the increased
exasperation of the abb6.

"Ah! ah!" vociferated the latter, "ah! that is the
way you take it ! ah ! it is thus that you would send mo
to the stars, is it ? Ah 1 you intend me for the gallows,
do you ? "

686 TAKING THE BASTILR

*' Why, I did not say that," cried Piton, beginning to
be alarmed at the turn the conversation was taking.

"Ah ! you promise me the heaven of the unfortunate
Foulon, of tiie unhappy Berthier."

" Why so, Monsieur I'Abbe ?"

** Ah I you have tlie ruuniug-noose prepared — eanguin-
ary executioner. It was you, was it not, who, on the
square before the H6tel de Ville, ascended the lamp-iron,
and with your long, hideous, spider-like arms drew the
victims to you ?"

Pitou uttered a perfect roar of horror and indignation.

** Yes, it was you ; and I recognize you,*' continued the
abbe, in a transport of divination, which made him re-
semble Joab, " I recognized thee — thou art Catiline."

*' But really," exclaimed Pitou, " do you know that you
are saying abominable things to me, Monsieur TAbbc' ?
Do you know tliat, in point of fact, yon are insulting
me ? "

" I insult you ? "

" Do you know tliat if this continues, I will comjilain
to the National Assembly ? Ah ! but "

The abbe lauglied with a sinistrously ironical expression.

" Lay your information," said he.

" And that punishment is awarded to ill-disposed persons
who insult the good ? "

*' The lamp-post ! ]'

" You are a bad citizen."

*' The rope ! the rope I "

Then he exclaimed, as if suddenly enlightened, and
struck with a movement of generous indignation :

** Ah ! the helmet ! the helmet !— 'tis he ! "

" Well," said Pitou, " What is the matter with m3' hel-
met ? "

"The man who tore out the still smoking heart of Ber-
thier — the cannibal who carried it stiH bleeding, and laid
it on the table of the electors — wore a nelmct ; that man
with the helmet was you, Pitou — it was you, monster that
you are ! Avaunt ! avaunt 1 avaunt ! "

And oar^li time that the abbe i)rononnced the word
avaunt, whioh he did with much tragic emphasis, lie ad-
vanced one step toward Pitou, who retreated in the same
proportion.

But on hearing this accusation, of which tlie reader

TAKING THE BASTILE. fySl

knows Pitou to be perfectly innocent, the poor lad threw
far from him the helmet, of which he was so proud, which
rolled over upon the pavement of the courtyard, with the
heavy, hollow sound of copper lined witli pasteboard.

" You see, wretch ! '' cried the abbe, '* you acknowledge
it."

And he assumed the attitude of Lekain,* in Orosmanes,
at the moment when, after finding the letter, he accuses
Zaire.

" Come, now," said Pitou, completely taken aback by
so horrible an accusation, ** you are exaggerating. Mon-
sieur I'Abbe."

"I exaggerate — that is to say, that you only hanged a
little — that is to say that you only ripped up a little, poor,
■weak child ! "

'' Monsieur Abbe, you know full well it was not I, you
well know that it was Pitt."
■ " And who is Pitt ? "

** Pitt the second — the son of Pitt the first — of Lord
Chatham. He who has distributed money, saying, ' Spend
it — you need not give any account of it.' If you under-
stood English, I would tell it you in English, but you do
not know that language."

" You know it, then, you ? "

" Monsieur Gilbert taught it me."

** In three weeks ? Monsieur Impostor ! "

Pitou saw that he had made a false step.

" Hear me, Monsieur I'Abbe," said he, '' I will not con-
tend with you any further. You have your own
ideas "

"Really?"

"That is but right."

"You acknowledge that? Monsieur Pitou allows me
to have my own ideas ! Thanks, Monsieur Pitou."

" Good ! There, you are getting angry again. You
must comprehend that if this continues I shall not be able
to tell you the object which brought me here."

" Wretch ! You had an object in coming here, then ?
You were deputed, perhaps ?"

And the abbe laughed ironically.

" Sir," said Pitou, placed by the abbe himself upon the
footing in which he wished to find himself since the com-
* A great French tragedian.

588 TAKING THE BASTILE.

mencement of the discussion, "you know the great re-
spect 1 have always hud for your cliurucLer."

*' Ah ! yes, let us talk of that."

" And the admiration I have always cutertaiued for
your knowledge," added Pitou.

*' Serpent ! " exclaimed the abbe.

" WJjat, I ?" cried Pitou, " that, for example ! "

" Come, now, let us hear what you have to ask of me ?
Tliat I should take you back here ? Xo, no ; I would not
spoil my scholars. No ; you would still retain the noxious
venom ; you would infect my young plants : Infecit,fabida
laho."

*' But, good Monsieur I'Abb^ "

''No, do not ask me that ; if you must absolutely eat —
for I presume that the hangers -f Paris eat as well as
honest people. They eat, oh, God ! In short, if you re-
quire that I should throw you your portion of raw meat,
yon shall have it. But at the door, on the spatula, as at
Kome the masters did to their dogs."

"]\Ion6ieur I'Abbe," cried Pitou, drawing himself up
proudly, " I do not ask you for my food ; I have where-
with to provide food, God be thanked ! I will not be a
burden to anyone."

" Ah ! " exclaimed the abbe, with surprise.

"I live as all living beings do, and that without begging,
and by that industry which nature has implanted in me ;
I live by my own labor ; and more than that, I am so far
from being chargeable on my fellow-citizens, that several
among them have elected me their chief."

" Ilcy ! " cried the abbe, with so much surprise mingled
with so much terror that it might have been thought that
he had trod upon a viper.

" Yes, yes ; they have elected me their chief," repeated
Pitou, complacently.

" Chief of what ?" inquired the abbe.

" Chief of a troop of freemen," said Pitou.

"Ah! good Heaven!" cried tlie abb6, "the unfortu-
nate boy has gone mad ! "

" Chief of the National Guard of Ilaramont," con-
cluded Pitou, affecting modesty.

The abbe leaned toward Pitou, in order to gain from his
features a coulirmation of his words.

" There is a National Guard at Ilaramont ? " cried he.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 589

" Yes, Monsieur I'Abbe. "

*" Aud you are the chief of it ?"

*' Yes, Mousieur I'Abbe."

*'You, Pitou ?"

''I, Pitou."

The abbe raised his outstretched arms toward heaveu,
like Phiueas, the high priest.

*' Abomination of desolation ! " murmured he.

*'You are not ignorant, Monsieur Abbe," said Pitou,
with gentleness, "that the National Guard is an institu-
tion destined to protect the life, the liberty, and the prop-
erty of the citizens."

*'0h! oh!" continued the abbe, overwhelmed by his
despair.

*' And that," continued Pitou, *' too much vigor can
not be given to that institution, above all, in the country,

on account of the very numerous bands "

•" Bands of which you are the chief ! " cried the abbe ;
** bands of plunderers, bands of incendiaries, bands of as-
sassins ! "

" Oh, do not confound things in this manner, dear Mon-
sieur I'Abbe ; you will see my soldiers, 1 hope, and never
were there more honest citizens."

"Be silent ! be silent !"

** You must consider, on the contrary, that we are your
natural protectors, and the proof of this is, that I have
come straiglit to you."

" And for what purpose ? " inquired the abbe.

*'Ah ! tiiat is precisely it," said Pitou, scratching his
ear, aud looking anxiously at the spot where his helmet
was lying, in order to ascertain whether in going to pick
up this very necessary portion of his military equipment
he would not place himself at too great a distance from his
line of retreat.

The helmet had rolled to within some few paces only of
the great gate which opened on the Rue de Soissons.

" I asked you for what pur})ose ? " repeated the abbe.

*' Well," said Pitou, retreating backward two steps to-
ward his helmet, " this is the object of my mission, good
Monsieur I'Abbe ; permit me to develop it to your
sagacity."

" Exordium ? " muttered the abbe.

Pitou backed two steps more toward his helmet.

690 TAKING THE BASTILE.

But by a singular maneuver, and Avhicli did not fail to
give Pitou some uneasiness, whenever he made two steps
nearer to his liehnet, the abbe, in order to remain at the
same distance from him, advanced two steps toward Pitou.

" Well," said Pitou, beginning to feel more courageous
from his proximity to his defensive head-piece, "all sol-
diers require muskets, and we have not any."

"All, you have no muskets !" cried the abbe, dancing
with joy. '* Ah ! they have no muskets 1 Soldiers with-
out muskets ! Ah ! by my faith, they must be very
pretty soldiers ! "

"But, Monsieur I'Abbe," said Pitou, taking again two
steps nearer to his helmet, ** when men have not muskets
they seek for them."

"Yes," said the abbe, "and you are in search of
some ? "

Pitou was able to reach his helmet, and brought it
near him with his foot. Being thus occupied, he did not
at once reply to the abbe.

" Yon look, then, for some ?" repeated the latter.

" Yes."

" Where ? "

" In your house," said Pitou, jilacing tlio helmet on his
head.

" Guns in my house ? " asked the abbe.

**Yes. You have many."

" Ah ! my museum ; you come to rob my museum.
Only fancy the cuirasses of old heroes on the backs of
such creatures ! Pitou, I told you just now tliat you were
mad. The swords of tlie Spaniards of Almanza, the pikes
of the Swiss of Marignon were never made for such a
troop as yours."

Tlie abbe laughed so scornfully that a cold shudder ran
through Pitou's veins.

" No, abbe," said Pitou ; " the Spanish swords and
Swiss pikes would be of no use."

" It is well you see it."

"Not those arms, abbe, but those capital muskets I
cleaned so often when I studied under you.

^^ Dam me Galatea foiebaf,"

added Pitou, with a most insinuating smile.

" Indeed," said the abbe, and he felt his few hairs stand

TAKING THE BASTILE. 591

erect as Piton spoke. ** You want my old marine mns*
kets ? "

" They are the only weapons you have without any his-
torical interest, and really fit for service."

*' Indeed," said the abbe, placing his hand on the handle
of his hammer, as the soldier would have seized his sword.
*'Back ! now the traitor unveils himself."

*'Abbe," said Pitou, passing fi'om menace to prayer,
*' give me thirty muskets "

'' Go back." The abbe advanced toward Pitou.

*' And you will have the glory of having contributed to
rescue the country from its oppressors."

''Furnish arms to be used against me and mine?
l^ever ! " said the abbe.

He took up his hammer :

*' Never, never ! "

He wielded it above his head.

"Monsieur," said Piton, "your name shall be placed
in the journal of Monsieur Prudhomme."

"My name in his paper ?"

"Honorably mentioned."

" I had rather be sent to the galleys."

" What, you refuse ?" asked Pitou.

" Yes, and tell you to go ! "

The abbe pointed to the door.

" That would be very wrong, for you would be accused
of treason. Monsieur, I beg you not to expose yourself to
that."

" Make me a martyr hero ; I ask but that." And his
eye glared so that he looked more like the executioner
than the victim.

So Pitou thought, for he began to fall back.

"Abbe," said he, stepping back, "I'm an ambassador
of peace, a quiet deputy."

" You come to rob my armory, as your accomplices did
that of the Invalides."

" Wliich was most laudable," said Pitou.

" And which will hero expose you to the risk of the end
of my hammer."

" Monsieur," said Pitou, who recognized an old acquain-
tance in the tool, " you will not thus violate the law of
nations ? "

" You will see."

592 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' I am protected by my character of ambassador."

The abbe cojitinued to advance.

" Abbe ! abbe ! abb6 !" said Pitou.

He was at the street-door, face to face with his danger-
©ns enemy, and Pitou had either to fight or run.

To run, he had to open the door ; to open the door,
turn.

If he turned, Pitou exposed to danger the part of his
body the least protected by the cuirass.

*' You want my guns ? you want my guns ? "' said the
abbe, " and say, ' I will have them or you die ! '"

" On the contrary, monsieur, I said nothing of the
kind."

" "Well, you know where they are. Cat my throat and
take them."

"I am incapable of such a deed."

Pitou stood at the door with his hand on the latch, and
thought not of the abbe's muskets, but of his hammer.

" Then von will not give me the muskets ?"

"No!""

" I ask vou again."

" No— 710 ! "

"Again ?"

" No— no ! "

** Then keep them ! " and he dashed through the half-
open door. His movement was not quick enough to avoid
the hammer, which hissed through the air and fell on the
small of the back of Pitou, and great as was the courage
of the conqueror of the Bastile, he uttered a cry of pain.

Just then many of the neighbors rushed out, and to
their surprise saw Pitou running away with his sword and
helmet, and the Abbe Fortier at the door brandishing his
hammer as the angel of destruction wields his sword of
flame.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

We have seen how Pitou was disappointed.

The fall was immense. Not even Satan had fallen from
such an erninenc(^ when from heaven he was thrown to
hell. Satan foil, but remained a king, while the Abbo
Fortier's victim was only Auge Pitou.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 593

How could he appear before the persons who had sent
him ? How, after having testified such rash confidence,
could he say that he was a boaster and a coward, wlio
armed with a sword and a helmet, had suifered au old abbe
to put him to flight.

Pitou was wrong in having boasted that he wonld
triumph over the Abbe Fortier, and in failing.

The first time he found himself out of view, he put his
hand on his head, and thought.

He had expected to annihilate Fortier with his Latin
and Greek. He thought that by kind words he would
soften the old Cerberus, but he had been bitten, and all
had been spoiled.

The abbe had great self-esteem, and Pitou had relied
on it. What most offended the abbe v/as Pitou's finding
fault with his French — a thing he cared more about than
he did about the muskets, which he had souglit to take
from him.

Young people, when good, always think others as good
as they are themselves.

The abbe was not only an outrageous royalist, but also
an outrageous philologist.

Pitou was especially sorry that he had excited him both
on account of Louis XVI. and the verb to be. He knew
and should have managed his friend. That was his error,
and he regretted it, though too late.

What should he have done ?

By eloquence have flattered the abbe of his own royal-
ism, and not have noticed his mistakes in grammar.

He should have convinced him that the National Guard
of Haramont was opposed to tlie revolution.

He should have said that it would sustain the king.

Above all, he never should have said a word about the
verb to le.

There was no earthly doubt but that the abbe would
have opened his arsenal for the purpose of securing to the
cause of the king such a leader and such a company.

This falsehood is diplomacy. Pitou thought over all the
stories of old times.

He remembered Philip of Macedon, who swore falsely
80 often, but who was called a great man.

Of Brutus, who, to overcome his enemies, pretended to
be a fool, but who is thought a great man.

594 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Of Themistocles, wlio deceived his fellow-citizens, bnt
who is culled ii great man.

On the other hand, he remembered that Aristotle won Id
admit of no injustice, and that he, too, was esteemed a
great man.

This contrast annoyed him.

He thought, though, that Aristotle fortunately lived at
a time when the Persians were so stupid that one could act
honestly and yet conquer them.

He then remembered that Aristides had been exiled,
and that this circumstance acted in favor of the King of
Macedon. He rather approved of Philip, Brutus, and
Themistocles.

Descending into modern times, Pitou remembered how
Gilbert, Bailly, Lameth, Mirabeau would have acted, had
Louis XVI. been the abbe and they been Pitou.

What would they not have done to have armed the five
hundred thousand National Guards of France .'*

Exactly what Pitou had not done.

They would have persuaded Louis XVL that they
desired nothing more than to preserve the father of the
French ; that to save him, from three to five hundred
thousand guns were needed.

Mirabeau would here succeed.

Pitou then remembered the two following lines :

•* Wlien you to the devil pray,
Call hiiii the giver of good."

He came to the conclusion that Ange Pitou was a per-
fect brute, and that to return to his electors with any glory
he would have to do exactly what he had not.

Pitou determined then, either by force or by tricks, to
get possession of the arms.

The first means were tricks.

He could enter the abbe's museum and steal the arms.

Tricks !

If he did it alone, the act would be theft. If with com-
panions, it would be simply a removal.

Tlie very word theft made Pitou uneasy.

There were yet in France people enough used to the old
laws to call tlie removal highway robbery.

Pitou hesitated.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 595

Bnt Pitou's self-love was excited, and to save it he was
forced to act alone.

He set to work most diligently to seek some mode of
extricating himself.

At last, like Archimedes, he shouted, "Eureka!"

The following was his plan :

Lafayette was Commander-in-Chief of the National
Guards of France.

Haramont was in France.

Haramont had a National Guard.

Lafayette, then, was Commander of the National Guard
of Haramont.

He could not, therefore, consent that they should he
destitute while the rest of France was armed.

To reach Lafayette he had. to appeal to Gilbert — Gilbert
—Billot.

Pitou had, then, to write to Billot.

As Billot could not read, he, in the first place, Avrote
Gilbert, thus saving the necessity of at least one letter.

Before he did so he went secretly to Haramont, not,
however, without being seen by Tellier and Maniquet.

They withdrew in silence, and each with a finger on his
lips as a token of silence.

Pitou had entered on the jirosecution of a full course of
politics.

The following is a copy of the letter which produced
such an effect on Tellier and Maniquet :

" Dear and Honoeable Monsieur Billot. — The rev-
olutionary cause in our part of the country every day gains.

" The people of Haramont has enrolled itself in the
active National Guard.

*' It is, however, unarmed.

" Arms may be procured. Certain persons have large
quantities, the possession of which would prevent the ex-
penditure of public money.

" If General Lafayette be pleased to order these to be
seized and distributed, I will myself assure thirty muskets
can be placed in the arsenals of Haramont.

" It is the only way to oppose the anti-revolutionary
action of the aristocrats, wlio are enemies of the nation.
** Your fellow-citizeu and servant,

" Ange Pitou."

596 TAXING THE BASTILE.

When this was done, he remembered that he had for-
gotten to speak of the farmer's wife and family.

On the other hand, lie was too much of a Brutus to tell
Billot about Catherine. He, however, opened his letter
and wrote, with a sigh, this postscript :

"P. 8. — Mademoiselle Catherine and all are well, and
send their love to Monsieur Billot."

He thus compromised neither himself nor any one.

He sent the letter, and the answer soon came.

On the next day, a mounted express reached Haramont
and asked for M. Ange Pitou.

All the members of the miliiia were on the qui give.

The horse was white with foam, and the rider wore the
uniform of the Parisian National Guard.

From the excitement he produced all may fancy ho\y
great was Pitou's agitation.

He approached, and not without trembling received the
package which the officer gave him.

It was the reply of Billot, written by Gilbert.

He advised Pitou to be both moderate and patriotic.

He inclosed an order of Lafayette, oouutersigned by the
Minister of War, for the Xational Guard of Haramont to
arm itself.

The order Avas thus written :

'' The possessors of muskets and sabers, in a greater
number than one, will be required to place tliem in the
hands of the commanders of the National Guards of the
Commune.

**The present order extends to all the province."

Pitou thanked the officer, and saw him at once set out.

Pitou had reached the acme of glory, having received a
message directly from Lafayette.

This message suited his ideas exactly.

To dcscril)e Pitmi's impressions would be impossible,
and we will not, therefore, attempt to do so. The sight,
however, of the excited countenances of idl the peoj)le, Iho
great respect exhibited to him, would have made all think
Pitou a most important personage.

All the electors requested to see and touch the minis-
terial seal, a favor Pitou kindly granted.

When none but the initiated remained, Pitou said :

TAKING THE BASTILE. 597

** Citizens, my plans succeeded. I wrote to General
Lafayette, who wished to form a National Guard, and had
selected me as commander. Read the directions of this
letter."

The dispatch had been directed :

"Citizen

" Ange Pitou,

'* Commander of the National Guard of Hr.ramont."

" I am, then, recognized in my rank, by Lafayette, as
commander. You are recognized as guards."

A loud shout was raised.

"I know where we can get arms," said Pitou.

''Yon will at once appoint a lieutenant and a sergeant.
Those two functionaries Avill accompany me."

All present seem to hesitate.

" What is your opinion, Pitou ? " said Maniquet.

"The matter does not concern me. Meet alone and
appoint the two functionaries. But appoint capable ones."

Pitou bid adieu to his soldiers, and remained in a state
of solemn grandeur.

He thus remained in his glory, while the soldiers dis-
cussed the details of the military power which was to re-
strain Haramont.

The election lasted an hour. The lieutenant and ser-
geant chosen were Tellier and Maniquet, the last of Avhom
was the subaltern. They returned and announced the
fact to Pitou.

He then said :

*'Now there is no time to lose."

*'Yes," said an enthusiast, *' let us begin the manual."
- *' Wait a moment, let us get guns first."

*'True."

**But can we not practise with sticks ?"

''Let us be military," said Pitou, who watched the
military order with anxiety, but who did not feel himself
qualified to teach an art of which he was utterly ignorant.

"It is a difficult matter to teach a raw recruit how to
shoot a stick. Let us not be ridiculous."

" True. We must have muskets."

" Come with me, then, lieutenant and sergeant. The
rest of you wait here."

All acquiesced respectfully.

698 TAKING THE BASTLLE.

'*Wc have six hours' diiyliglit yet left. Tliat is more
time thnn is needed to go to VillerB-Cotterets."

** Forward ! " said Pitoii.

The staff of the army of Ilaramont set off.

When Pitoii, however, read again the letter he had re-
ceived, he discovered tliat he had overlooked one phrase.

" Why did Pitou forget to give Doctor Gilbert some in-
formation about Sebastian ?

" Wliy does not Sebastian write to his father ? "

CHAPTER XXXV.

The Abbe Fortier was far from suspecting what danger
he was in, prepared carefully for him by deep diplomacy,
lie had no idea of Pitou's influence.

lie was seeking to prove to Sebastian that bad company
is the ruin of innocence ; that Paris is a pit of perdition ;
that even angels would be corrupted there, like those who
went astray at Gomorrah — and, seriously impressed by
Pitou's visit, besought Sebastian always to remember to
be a good and true loyalist.

By those words the abbe meant a very different thing
from what Dr. Gilbert meant.

He forgot that as long as this difference existed, he was
committing a very bad action, for he sought to excite the
Bon's opinions against the father.

He met, to tell the fact, with no great difficulty.

Strange to say, at a period when the minds of most
children are, so to say, mere potters' clay, on which every
pressure leaves a mark, Sebastian, in fixity of purpose,
was a man.

Was that to be attributed to tliat aristocratic nature
which disdains everything plebeian ?

Or was it plebeianism pushed to stoicism ?

The mystery was too deep for the Abbe Fortier. He
knew the doctor was an enthusiastic ])atriot, and with the
simplicity of mind peculiar to ecclesiastics, sought for the
glory of God to reform the son.

Though Sebastian appeared to listen, he did not, but
was nnisiiig on those strange visions which previously had
taken possession of him under the tall trees of the park
of Villers-Cotterets when the abbe took his pupils thither.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 599

and which had become, so to say, a kind of second life, so
closely however allied to the natural existence, that in our
prosaic days it would seem impossible.

All at once a loud knock was heard at the door in
Soissons Street, and it at once opened and admitted several
persons.

They were the maii'e, adjunct, and town clerk.

Behind them were the gendarmes, after whom came
several curious persons.

The abbe went at once to the maire, and said :

" Monsieur Longpre, what is the matter ? ''

*' Abbe are you aware of the new order of the Minister
of AYar ? "

" I am not."

*' Be pleased to read this."

As he read he grew pale.

'* Well ! " said he.

" Well, the gendarmes of Haramont expect you to sur-
render your arms."

The abbe sprung forward as if he would devour the
National Guard.

Pitou thought it time for himself to be his own lieuten-
ant.

" Here are the gentlemen," said the maire.

The abbe's face was flushed.

''What, these vagabonds ?"

The maire was a good-natured man, and as yet had no
decided political opinions. He had no disposition to
quarrel either with the Church or the National Guard.

The words of the abbe excited a loud laugh, and he
said to Pitou :

" Do you hear how he speaks of your command ? "

'' Because the abbe knew us when children, he fancies
we can never grow old."

"The children, however, liavc now grown," said Mani-
quet, reaching forth his mutilated hand to the men.

*' And are serpents."

*'Wlio will bite if they be trampled on," rejoined
Maniquet.

In these threats the maire saw all the future revolution,
and the abbe martyrdom.

'' A portion of your arms are needed," said the maire,
who sought to efEect a reconciliation.

600 TAKING THE BASilLE.

" They are not mine ? " said the abbe.

*' Whose are they ? "

*'The Duke of Orleaus'."

"Well, that matters not," said Pitou.

" How so ? " said the abbe.

" We would ask for them."

"I will write to the duke," said the abb6, majestically.

'•' The abbe forgets that if the duke were written to, he
would reply that not only the weapons of his English
enemies, but of his grandfather, Louis XIV., must be
surrendered to i)atriots."

The abbe knew this was true.

"■ Circum dedsiti »ic hostihus meis."

" True, abbe ; but to your purely political enemies. We
hate in you only the bad patriot."

''Fool," said Fortier, with au excitement which in-
spired him with a certain kind of eloquence — *' fool, and
dangerous fool ! which is the patriot ? I, who would keep
these arms, or j^ou, who would use them in rapine and
war ? Which is best ? 1, who cultivate the olive of
peace, or you who would lacerate the bosom of France, our
common mother, with war ?"

The maire sought to conceal his emotion, and nodded
to the abbe, as if to say :

'' Good I "

The adjunct, like Tarquiii, cut down flowers with his
cane.

Pitou was amazed.

The two subalterns saw it, and Averc surprised.

Sebastian alone was cool.

He approached Pitou, and said :

'' Well, what is to be done, Pitou ? '^

Pitou said :

"The order is signed," and showed the minister's, his
father's and Lafayette's signatures.

" Why, then, do you hesitate .^ "

His flashing eye, his erect form, showed clearly the two
indomitable races from which he 8i)ruug.

The abbe heard his words, shuddered, and said :

" Three generations oppose me."

" Abbe," said the maire, " the order must be obeyed."

The abbe put his hand on the keys which were m the
girdle that from monastic habit he yet wore, and said:

TAKING THE BASTILE. 601

*' Never ! They are not mine, and I will not surrender
them till my master orders me ! "

'• Abbe, abbe 1" said the maire, who felt compelled to
disapprove.

" This is rebellion," said Sebastian. ** Master, be

careful."

" Tu qitoque," said the abbe, like Caesar folding his robe
over his bosom.

" Be at ease, abbe," said Pitou, 'Hhese arms will be in
good hands for France. "

'•' Hush, Judas ! You betrayed your master. Why will
you not betray your country ? "

Pitou felt his conscience prick him. What he had done
was not at the instinct of a noble heart, though he had
acted bravely.

He looked around, and saw his two subalterns apparently
ashamed of his weakness.

Pitou felt that he was in danger of losing his influence.

Pride came to the aid of this champion of the revolution.

He looked up, and said :

** Abbe, submissive as I was to my old master, not un-
replied to shall such comments be made."

** Ah, you reply ! " said the Abbe Fortier.

*'Yes, and tell me if I am not right. You call me
traitor, and refuse me the arms I asked you kindly for, but
wliich I now take in the name and by the strong hand of
the law. Well, abbe, I had rather be called traitor to my
master than, like you, have opposed the liberty of my
country. Our country forever I "

Tlie maire nodded to Pitou, as he previously had to the
abbo.

The effect of this address ruined the abbe.

The maire disapproved.

So, too, would the adjunct, but the absence of the two
chiefs would certainly have been remarked.

He then, with the gendarmes and Pitou, who was per-
fectly familiar with the locality in wliich he had grown
up, proceeded to the museum.

Sebastian rushed after the patriots, the other children
appearing amazed.

After the door was opened the abbe sunk, half dead
witli mortification and rage, on the first chair.

When once in the museum, Pitou's assistants wished to

26— Dumas— Vol. IX.

602 TAKING THE BASTILE.

pillage everything, but the honesty of the commandant
restrained tliem.

lie took only thirty-tliree muskets, for he commanded
thirty-three National Guards.

As it might be necessary for him some day to fire a shot,
he took, as a thirty-fourth, an officer's gun, lighter and
shorter than the others, with which he could either kill a
false Frenchman or a true Prussian.

He then selected a straight sword like Lafayette's, which
had perhaps been borne by some hero at Fontenoy or
Phillipsbourg. He buckled it on.

Each of his colleagues then placed twelve muskets on
their shoulders, and were so delighted that they scarcely
felt the enormous weight.

Pitou took the rest.

They passed through the park to avoid observation in
going through the city.

It was also the shortest route.

Our three heroes, loaded with their spoils, passed rapidly
through the park, and reached the rendezvous. Ex-
hausted and heated, they took their precious prize that
night to Pitou's house. It may be the country had been
too hasty in confiding it to them.

There was a meeting of the guard that night, and Pitou
gave them the muskets, saying, in the words of the Spar-
tan mother :

*' With them or on them."

Thus was the little commune, by the genius of Pitou,
made to seem busy as an ant-hill during an earthquake.

Delight at possessing a gun among a jieople smugglers
by nature, whom the long oppression of gamekeepers had
incensed, could not but be great. Pitou, consequently,
became a god on earth. His long legs and arms were for-
gotten. 80, too, were his clumsy knees and his grotesque
antecedents. lie could not but be the tutelary god of the
country.

Tlie next day was passed by the enthusiasts in cleaning
and repairing their arms. Some rejoiced that the cock
worked well, and others repaired the springs of the lock
or replaced the screws.

In the meantime, Pitou had retired to his room as
Agamemnon did to his tent, brightening his brains as
others did their guus.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 603

What was Pitou thinking of ?

Pitou, become a leader of the people, was thinking of
the hollowness of earthly grandeur.

The time had come wlieu the whole edifice he had erected
was about to crumble.

The guns had been issued on the evening before, and
the day jiassed in putting them in order. On the next
day he would have to drill his men. and Pitou did not
know a single command of " Load in twelve times."

What is the use of a commandant ignorant of the drill ?
The writer of these lines never knew but one so ignorant.
He was, however, a countryman of Pitou.

He thought with his head on his hands and his body
prostrate.

Csesar amid the thickets of Gaul, Hannibal wandering
on the Alps, and Columbus drifting over the ocean, never
thought more deeply, and never so fully confessed them-
selves Diis ignotis, the fearful powers who hold the secrets
of life and death, than did Pitou.

''Come,'* said Pitou, ** time speeds, and to-morrow I
must appear in all ray insignificance.

"To-morrow the captor of the Bastile, the god of war,
will be called by all Haramont an idiot, as I do not know
who was by the Greeks.

" To-day I triumph, but to morrow I shall be hooted.

" This cannot be. Catherine will know it, and will
think me disgraced."

Pitou paused.

" What will extricate me from this dilemma ?

" Audacity.

" Not so. Audacity lasts a second. To load in the
Prussian time requires half a minute.

"Strange idea, to teach the Prussiai\ drill to French-
men. I am too much of a patriot to teach Frenchmen
any of their inventions. I will make a national drill.

" But I may go astray.

*' I saw a monkey once go through the manual at a fair.
He probably, though being a monkey, had never served.

'* Ah ! I have an idea."

He began to stride as fast as his long legs would permit,
but was suddenly brought to a stand by the idea.

" My disappearance will astonish my men. 1 must iu-
lorm them."

604 TAKING THE BASTILE.

He then sent for Ins subalterns, and said :

'• Toll the men that the first drill will take place on the
day after to-morrow."

"Why not to-morrow ?"

" You are fatigued, and before drilling the men I must
instruct the officers. Be careful, too, I beg you, to do as
I do, and to say nothing."

They saluted him a la militairc.

" Very well, tlie drill will be at half past four on the
dav after to-morrow."

The subalterns left, and as it was half after nine, went
to bed.

Pitou let them go, and when they had turned the corner,
went in an opposite direction, and soon was hidden in the
thi(!kest of the park.

Now let us see what Pitou was thinking of.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Pitou hurried on for half an hour into the very depths
of the wood.

There was in the undergrowth, beneath a huge rock, a
hut built some thirty-five or forty years before, which was
inhabited by a person who, in his day, had excited no
little mystery.

This Imt, half buried in the ground and surrounded by
foliage, received light only by an oblique opening. Not
unlike a gipsy hut, it was often to be detected only by the
smoke which rose from it.

None but gamekeepers, smugglers, and sportsmen
would ever have suspected its existence or that it was
inhabited.

For forty years, though, it had been the abode of a re-
tired keeper, whom the Duke of Orleans, father of Louis
Philippe, had permitted to remain with the privilege of
killing a rabbit or a hare a day.

Fowl and large game were excepted.

i\i the time avc speak of the old man was sixty-nino
years old. His name was Clevis originally, to which, atj
he grew old, the title Father was annexed.

From his residence the rock took the name of Clovis's
Stone.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 605

He had been wounded at Fontenoy, and consequently
had lost a leg, and been treated kindly as the duKe ajj-
pears to have done.

He never went into great cities, and visited Villers-
Cottereta but once a year for the purpose of buying three
hundred and sixty-five loads of powder and ball. On leap
years he bought three hundred and sixty-six.

On that day he took to the hatter, M. Cornu, three
hundred and sixty-five or three hundred and sixty-six rab-
bit or hare skins, for which he received seventy-five Tours
livres. He never missed a shot, and we are, therefore,
able to be so exact.

He lived on the flesh of the animals, though sometimes
he sold it.

With the skins of the animals he bought powder and lead.
, Once a year Father Clovis entered into a kind of specu-
lation. Father -Clovis went through the neighboring vil-
lages, and through the intervention of the old women,
that all the young women, who bought his hares, to come
on St. Louis, should come thrice a year and slide down
the declivity of the rock.

The first year many young women came, but none dared
the attempt.

On the next year three tried to do so. Two were mar-
ried during the course of the year, and Father Clovis said
the third would have been married had she been brave as
the others were.

The next year all dared the attempt.

Father Clovis declared that enough men could not be
found for so many young women, but that the boldest
would be married. lie had brilliant success.

For thirty-five years Clovis lived in this manner. The
country treated him as the Arabs do their marabouts. He
had become a legend.

One thing, however, excited the jealousy of the guards
on duty. It was said that Father Clovis had fired hut
three hundred and sixty-five times, but had killed the same
number of hares.

More than once the nobles of Paris, invited by the Duke
of Orleans, who had heard of Fattier Clovis, placed a louis
or a crown in his broad hand, aiul sought to ascertain how
any one could never miss.

Old Clovis, however, told them nothing more than that

606 TAKING THE BASTILE.

with the game gnn he never missed a man at a hundred
yards. If he could kill a man, it was far easier to kill a
hare.

If any smiled when Clovis spoke thus, he used to say,
*' AVhy do you fire when you are not sure of the mark ?"

*' Could I have belonged to the men of Monsieur de Pe-
lisse how could I ever miss ? "

" But why did Monsieur d'Orlcans, who is not at all
mean, grant you permission to fire but once a day ?"

" Because he knew that one shot would be enough."

The curiosity of this spectacle and the oddness of this
theory brought at least ten louis a day to the old an-
chorite.

Now, as he gained much money by the sale of his hare-
skins, and the holiday he had established, and he pur-
chased only a pair of gaiters every five years, and a coat
every ten, he was not at all unhappy.

On the contrary, it was said that he had a concealed
treasure, and that his heir would get a good thing. Such
was the singular person whom Pitou went to at midnight
when the brilliant idea of which we have spoken entered
his mind.

To fall in with Father Clovis, however, required much
address.

Fiike one of Xeptune's old herdsmen, ho was not easily
overtaken. He knew easily how to distinguisli the use-
less man from one from whom he could make money.

Clovis was lying down on liis bed of straw, made of the
aromatic plants which tlio woods produce in September,
and which would not require to be changed until the same
month of the next year.

It was about eleven months, and the weather was calm
and bright.

To reach the hut of Clovis, he had to pass through the
thickets of oak and underbrush so thick that his arrival
could not be luiknown.

Pitou made ff>nr times as much noise as an ordinary per-
son would have done, and old Clovis lifted up hisliead.
TIo was nr>t asleep, but was on that day in a terribly l)ad
humor. An aefnclent ha<l hapj)cned wiiicli made him al-
most unapproachable. The accident was terrible.

His gun, wbifh he had used for five years with balls,
and for tliirty-five years with shot, had burst.

TAKING THE BASTILE, 607

For thirty-five years he had not missed a shot.

The fact of the hare being safe and sound was not the
greatest misfortune which had befallen Clevis. Two
fingers of his right hand had been carried away. Clovis
had bound up his fingers with bruised herbs.

Now, to procure another gun, Father Clovis would be
tinder the necessity of appealing to his treasury, and even
though he expended as much as two louis, who knew if
the gun would not burst at the second shot ?

Pitou came at an evil hour.

At the very moment Pitou placed his hand on the door,
old Clovis uttered a groan which amazed the commander
of the National Guard of Haramont.

Was it a wolf or some one substituted for Father
Clovis ?
, Pitou hesitated whether he should go in or not.

''Well, Father Clovis?"

" What ? " said the misanthrope.

Pitou was reassured. He recognized the voice of tlio
anchorite.

" Ah, you are in," said he.

He then entered the hut and bowed to the occupant.

Pitou said, as he entered the room, quietly :

"Good morning, Clovis."

" AVho goes there ? " said the proprietor.

"I."

" Who are you ?"

"I, Pitou."

" Who is Pitou ? "

*' Ange Pitou, of Haramont."

" Well, what is it to mo who you are ? "

*' Ah ! " said Pitou, " Clovis is not in a bad humor. I
was sorry to awaken him."

" Certainly you were."

'' What, then, must I do ? "

" Go away as quickly as you possibly can.**

''BWi let us talk."

" About what ? "

'' Of a favor you can do me."

*' I want pay for all I do."

*'Well, I pay for :ill I get."

" Possibly ; but I am uo longer of use to any one.**

*' How so ? "

608 TAKING TUE BASTILE.

*' I shall kill no more game."

** How so ? You never miss a shot, Clovis. It is im-
possible.'*

" Go away, I tell you."

" But, Father Clovis "

" You annoy me."

** Listen to me and you will not be sorry."

" Well, then, what do you wish ? Be brief."

** Y^ou are an old soldier."

" Well ? "

" Well, I wish "

''Goon."

"Teach me the manual."

** Are you a fool ? "

" No ; teach me the manual, and I will pay you."

'* The creature is mad," said Clovis. "What a sol-
dier ! "

" Father Clovis, will you teach me the manual or not ?
Do so, and I will pay you what you please."

The old man arose and said :

" What I please ? Well, give me a gun."

*' Bah ! I have thirty-four guns."

" Thirty-four ? "

" Y''es. I have thirty-five. It is a sergeant's musket —
the last, I mean, with the king's cipher on the breech."

"How came you by it? Y^ou did not steal it, I
hope ? "

Pitou told him the whole truth frankly and honestly.

" AVell, I will teach you ; but my fingers are hurt."

lie then told Pitou what accident had befallen
him.

"Well," said Pitou, " I will give you another gun. I
cannot give you other fingers, for all I have I need my-
self."

He arose.

The moon shed a torrent of white life on the little
opening in front of the hut.

Any one who had seen those two dark forms gesticulat-
ing at midnight could not have repressed some mysteri-
ous terror.

Clovis took up his burst gun with a sigh. He then
placed himself in a military position.

It was strange to see the old man again become erect.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 609

bent as he was from the habit of passing the bnshes, bnt
revived by the recollection of his regiment, his aiguillet,
and brushed back his dark hair.

" Look at me/' said he, '' look at me ; that is the way
to learn. Do as I do, and I will correct you."

Pitou made the attempt.

" Draw back your knees. Square your shoulders. Give
full play to your head. Give yourself a good foundation,
your feet are large enough."

Pitou did as well as he could.

"Very well," said the old man. "You look noble
enough."

If he looked thus after an hour's drill, what would he
not be in a month ? He would be majestic.

He wished to continue.

-Father Clovis, however, wished to get hold of the gun
first, and said :

" No, this is enough for once. Teach this at your first
drill, and they will not learn it in four days. I must, how-
ever, tell you, that to-morrow night there will be no
moon."

" We will go through the manual in your house, then."

"You will have to bring a light."

" And whatever else you want."

" Then bring my gun."

"You shall have it to-morrow."

" Very well. Now let me see if you recollect what I
told you."

Pitou behaved so well that Clovis complimented him.
He would have promised Clovis a six-pounder if he had
asked for one.

When they had finished, it lacked but an hour of day-
light, and he bid leave to his teacher, going, it must be
owned, slowly toward Haramont, the whole population of
which slept soundly.

Pitou sunk to sleep, and dreamed that he commanded
an army of many millions of men, and waged war on the
whole Avorld, his army obeying in one rank the word of
command, "Carry arms!"

On the next day he drilled his soldiers with an insolence
which they esteemed proof positive of his capacity.

Pitou became popular, and was admired by men, women,
and children.

610 TAKING THE BASTILE.

The women even became serious when, in stentorian
tones, he cried out :

'•' Be a soklier ! Look at me."
He was a soldier.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Old Clovis had his gun ; for what Pitou promised he
did.

In two visits Pitou became a grenadier. But, unfortu-
nately, when Clovis had taught him the manual, he had
taught all he knew.

Pitou bought a copy of the '' French Tatician," and of
the " Manual of the National Guard," on which he ex-
pended a crown.

The Haramout battalion made, thanks to Pitou, very
rapid progress. When he had reached the more compli-
cated maneuvers, he went to Soissons, where, in one hour,
from observing real soldiers drilled by real officers, he
learned in one day more than his books would have taught
him ill a month.

He thus toiled for two months.

Pitou was ambitious and in love. Pitou was unfortunate
in his love. Often, after his drill, which always followed
midnight study, had Pitou crossed the plains of Largny,
and now and then the whole forest, to meet Cath-
erine, who always kept her appointment at Boursonne.

Catherine used every day to steal away from her house-
hold duty, to a little cot near the barn of Boursonne, next
her beloved Isidor, who seemed always happy and joyous,
even though everything around seemed dark.

How great was Pitou's unhappiness when he remembered
how unequiil a share of happiness was vouchsafed to dif-
ferent men !

He to whom the girls of Ilaramont, Taillefontaine, and
Vivieres made love, who also had his rendezvous, yet was
forced to weep, like a child, before a door open to Isidor.

Pitou loved Catherine the more devotedly because he
saw that she was his superior. lie also knew that she
loved another, and though be ceased to be jealous of
Isidor, who was noble, handsome, and worthy of love,
Catherine, at Iciist, sprung from the people, sliould not
dii. grace her family nor make him unhappy.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 611

When he thought, therefore., he suffered very deeply.

" It was heartless," said he, " to suffer me to go. When
I did so, she never asked if I was dead or alive. What
would Billot say if he knew his friends were treated thus,
and his business thus neglected ? What would he say if
he knew that the housekeeper, instead of attending to his
business, was making love with the aristocratic M.
Charny ?

" He would say nothing, but kill Catherine.

*' It is something, however, to have such a revenge in
my grasp."

It was better, though, not to make use of it.

Pitou had observed that good actions, not understood,
never benefit the actors.

Would it not be well to let Catherine know what he was
about ? Nothing was easier ; he had only to speak to her
some day at mass, and let fall something to inform her
that three persons knew her secret. Was it not worth
while to make her suffer a little, to quell her pride ?

If, though, he went to the dance, he must appear as the
equal of the noble, a thing difficult to do when the object
of comparison was one so well dressed.

The pavilion in which Catherine used to meet Charny,
was in a kind of grove which was an appendant to the
forest of Villers-Cotterets.

A simple ditch divided the property of the count from
that of his neighbors.

Catherine, who was every day called for one reason or
another to visit the neighbors, found no difficulty in leap-
ing over this ditch. The rendezvous was certainly well
selected.

The pavilion was so placed that through the loopholes,
set with painted glass, she could overlook the whole grove,
while it was itself so secluded that no one could see it, and
three springs of a horse would put any one who sought to
leave in the forest or in neutral ground.

Pitou had watched Catherine so carefully, that he knew
whither she went, and whence she came, as well as the
poacher knows the track of the hare.

Catherine did not return to the forest with Isidor, who
used always to remain some time in the pavilion, in order
to see that she was not annoyed, and used then to go in a
contrary direction.

612 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Pitou liid himself on C.ilhorinc's puthway, and ascended
an immense tree which completely overlooked tiie pavilion.

Before an hour had passed, he saw Catherine come by.
She tied her horse in tlie wood, sjirnng over the ditch,
and went to the pavilion.

She dismounted just below the tree where Pitou was.

lie had only to descend and lean against tlie trunk,
lie then took from his pocket the "Manual of the Ka-
tionul fiuard," aiul began to read.

An hour after, Pitou heard a door open. He heard the
rustling of a silk dress, and saw Catherine look anxiously
around as if to see if she was watched.

She stood within ten paces of Pitou.

Pitou did not move, and kept his book on his knees.
He no longer, however, pretended to read, and looked at
Catheriiie so that she could not misunderstand him.

She uttered a half-stifled cry, and then became pale as
death. After another brief moment of indecision, he
rushed into the forest and became invisible.

Pitou had arranged matters well, and Catherine was
caught in the snare.

Pitou returned, half happy and half afraid, to Ilara-
mont.

As soon as he thought of what he had done, he saw that
it might have many consequences which jircviously had not
suggested themselves to him.

'The next day was appointed for a military parade.

Being sufficiently instructed, in their own opinion, the
National Cuards had requested to be assembled in the
presence of the public.

A few neighboring villages, excited by rivalry, and who
had also paid attention to tactics, were to come to Hara-
mont for a kind of contest.

A deputation from these villages was present under the
command of an old sergeant.

The announcement of RUi;h a spectacle brought many
persons together, and the parade-ground of Ilaramont
early in the day was occupied by crowds of young children,
and at a late hour by the fathers and mothers of the
cham]»ion8.

Four drums beat in four difTcrent directions, that of
Largny, Ver, Taillefontainc, aiid Vivieres.

Ilaramont was a center, and had its four cardinal points.

TAKING THE BASTILE. C13

A fifth replied ; it preceded the thirty-tliree National
Guards of Haramont.

Among the spectators was a portion of the aristocracy
and of the bourgeoisie of Viliers-Cotterets come to be
amused.

There were also many farmers who had come to see.

Soon Catherine and Mme. Billot came. Just at this
moment the National Guard of Ilaramont came from the
village, headed by Pitou, a drum and a fife. Pitou was
on a great white horse, which Maniquet had lent him for
the purpose of making a representation of Marquis
Lafayette ad vivum at Haramont.

Pitou grasped his sword and bestrode the huge horse.
If he did not represent the aristocracy, he at least rep-
resented the bone and sinew of the land.

The entrance of Pitou, and of those who had conferred
so much honor on the province, was saluted by loud ac-
clamations.

All had hats alike, with the national cockade, and
marched in two ranks in the most perfect order.

When it reached the parade, all approved of it.

Pitou caught a glance of Catherine and grew pale. She
trembled.

This was the most exciting portion of the review.

He put his men through the manual, and every command
excited much attention and applause.

The other villagers appeared excited and irregular.
Some were half armed, others half instructed, and were
completely demoralized by the comparison. The others
became vain of their excellence.

Both were uncertain, however, as to cause and effect.

From the manual they passed to the drill.

Here the sergeant expected to rival Pitou.

In consideration of age, the sergeant had received the
command, and marched his men to and fro by files.

He could do nothing more.

Pitou, with his sword under his arm, and his helmet on
his brow, looked on with infinite superiority.

When the sergeant saw his heads of column become lost
amid the trees, while the rear took the back track to Ilura-
mout ; wlien he saw his squares disperse, and squads and
platoons lose their commandants, he was greeted by a disap-
proving sound from his own soldiers.

614 TAKING THE BASTILE.

A crv was heard :

'• Pitou : Piiou : Pitou I "

" Yes, Pitou I " echoed the men of the other villages,
offended at an inferiority which they attributed to their
ijistructors.

Pitou, on his white horse, phiced liimself at tlie liead of
his men, to whom he gave the right, and gave the com-
mand in sucli a tone that the very oaks trembled.

As if by miracle, the broken files united, the maneuvers
were well executed, Pitou made such good use of his books,
and of Father Clovis's instructions.

The army, with one voice, sainted him Imperator on the
field of battle,

Pitou dismounted, and, covered with sweat, received
the salutations of the crowd.

He did not, however, see Catherine.

All at once Pitou heard her voice. It was not necessary
for him to seek her. She had sought him.

His triumph was immense.

'■ What \" said she, with an air in strange contrast with
her pale face. " Have you become proud because you are
a great general ? "

" Oh, no I " said Pitou. " Good mornini^, mademoi-
selle."

Then to Mme. Billot :

" I am happy to salute you, Madame l^illot."

Turning to Catherine, he said :

" Mademoiselle, you are wrong. I am not a great gen-
eral, but only a young man anxious to serve my country."

What he liad said was borne through the crowd, and
treated as a sublime sentiment.

" Angc," said Catherine, '' I must speak to yon."

" Ah I at last, at last ! " In a louder tone, he said :

" When you please."

" Return to the farm with us."

*' Very well."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Catiikrixe contrived to be alone with Pitou, in spite of
her mother's presence.

Old Mother Billot had some gossips, who walked by Iier
and maintained conversation.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 615

Catherine, who had left her horse, returned on foot with
Pi ton.

Such arrangements surprise no one in the country, where
people are more indulgent than they are in great cities.

It seemed natural enough for M. Pitou to talk to Mile.
Billot. It may be none ever noticed it.

On that day all enjoyed the silence and thickness of the
woods. All glory and happiness seems to reside amid the
primeval grandeur of the forests.

'' Here I am, Mademoiselle Catherine," said Pitou,
when they were alone.

" Why have you for so long a time not visited our farm ?
That is wrong, Pitou."

'• But, mad.emoiselle, you know the reason."

*' I do not. You are wrong."

Pitou bit his lips. It annoyed him to hear Catherine
tell a falsehood.

She saw and understood his expression.

*' But, Pitou, I have something to tell you."

'' Ah ! " said he.

" The other day you saw me in the hut?"

''Yes, I did." ^

** You saw me ?"

"• Yes."

She blushed.

" What were you doing there ? "

" You knew me."

" At first I did not. I did afterward."

*' What do you mean ?"

** Sometimes one does not pay attention."

"Certainly."

Both were silent, for each had much to think of.

Catherine said at last :

" Then it was you ? What were you doing there ?
Why tlid you hide yourself ? "

*' Hide myself I "

" Why ? "

*' Curiosity might have made me."

"I have no curiosity."

She stamped the ground most impatiently with her little
foot.

'•You were," said she, "in a place you do not visit
often."

610 TAKING THE BASTILE.

*' Yon saw I Svas reading."

'' I do not know."

"If you saw me, you did."

*' I did see you distinctly ; but what were you read-
ing ? "

"Mv' Tactics.'"

" What is that ? "

'•'A book in which I learned what I have since taught
my men. To study, niadame, one must be alone."

"" True ; in the forest nothing disturbs you."

''Nothing."

They were again silent j the rest of the party rode be-
fore them.

" When you study thus," said Catherine, " do you study
long ? "

" Whole days sometimes."

'' Then you had been long there ? "

*' Very long."

*' It is surprising that I did not see you when I came."

Here she told an untruth, but was so bold that Pitou
was convinced. He was sorry for her. All her wants
were due only to the want of circumspection.

'' I may have slept. I sometimes do when I study too
much."

" Well, while you slept I must have jmssed you. I went
to the old pavilion."

*^ Ah ! " said Pitou, " what pavilion ?"

Catherine blushed again. This time her manner was so
affected that he could not believe her.

" Charny's ])avilion. There is the best balm in the
country. I had hurt myself, and needed some leaves. I
hurt my hand."

As if lie wislied to believe her, Ange looked at her hands.

"Ah ! " said she, " not my hands, but my feet."

" Did you get what you wanted ? "

" Ah, yes. My feet, you sec, arc well."

Catherine fancied that she had succeeded ; she fancied
Pitou had seen and knew nothing. >She said, and it was
a great mistake :

" Then, Monsieur Pitou would have cut us. He is
proud of his position, and disdains peasants since he has
becojnc an officer."

Pitou was wounded. So great a sacrifice, even though

TAKING THE BASTILE. 617

feigned, demands another recompense ; and as Catherine
seemed to seek to mystify Pitou, and as she doubtless
laughed at him when she was with Isidor de Charny, all
Pitou's good humor passed away. Self-love is a viper
asleep, on which it is never prudent to tread unless you
crush it at once.

" Mademoiselle," said he, " it seems you cut me.'"'

*'Howso?"

'* First — you refused me work, and drove me from the
farm. I said nothing to Monsieur Billot, for, thank God,
I have a heart and hands."

" I assure you. Monsieur Pitou "

" It matters not ; of course you can manage your own
affairs. If, then, you saw me at the pavilion, you should
have spoken to me, instead of running away, as if yon
were- robbing an orchard."

The viper had stung. Catherine was uneasy.

'' Or as if your barn had been on fire. Mademoiselle, I
had not the time to shut my book before you sprung on
the pony and rode away. He had been tied long enough,
though, to eat up all the bark of an oak."

'' Then a tree was destroyed. But why. Monsieur
Pitou, do you tell me tliis ? "

Catherine felt that all her i)resence of mind was leaving
her.

^' Ah, you were gathering balm," said Pitou. ** A
horse does much in an hour,"

Catherine said :

*' In an hour ? "

" No horse, mademoiselle, could strip a tree of that size
in less time. You nuist have ])een collecting more balm
than would suffice to cure all the wounds received at the
Bastile."_

Catherine could not say a word.

Pitou was silent ; he knew he had said enough.

Mother Billot paused at the cross-road to bid adieu to
her friends.

Pitou was in agony, for he felt the pain of the wounds
he had inflicted, and was like a bird just ready to fly away.

*' Well, what says the officer ?" said Mme. Billot.

''That he wishes you good-day."

" Then good-day. Come, Catherine."

•* Ah ! tell me the truth," murmured Catherine.

CIS TAKING THE BASTILE.

"What?"

" Are you not yet my friend ?"

*' Alas !" said the poor fellow, ''yon, as yet without ex-
perience, began to make love, through confessions which
only the skilful know how to manage."

Pitou felt that his secret was rushing to his lips ; he felt
that the first word Catherine said would place him in her
power.

He ^yas aware, though, if he spoke he would die when
Catherine confessed to him what as yet he only suspected.

He was silent as an old Roman, and bowed to Catherine
with a respect which touched the young girl's heart ;
bowed to Mme. Billot, and disappeared.

Catherine made a bound as if she would follow him.

Mme. Billot said to her daughter :

" He is a good lad, and has much feeling."

When alone, Pitou began a long monologue, which we
will omit.

The poor lad did not know that in love there is both
honey and absinthe, and that Charny had all the honey.

From this hour, during which she had suffered horribly,
Catherine conceived a kind of respectful fear for Pitou,
which a few days before she was far from feeling toward
him.

When one cannot inspire love, it is not bad to inspire
fear ; and Pitou, who had great ideas of personal dignity,
would not have been a little flattered had he discovered
the existence even of such a sentiment.

As he was not, however, physiologist enough to see what
the ideas of a woman a league and a half from him are, he
went and sung a countless number of songs, the theme of
which was unfortunate love.

Pitou at last reached his own room, where he found his
chivalric guard had placed a sentinel. The man, dead
drunk, lay on a bench with his gun across his legs.

Pitou awoke him.

He then learned that his thirty men, good and true, had
ordered an entertainmcTit at old Father Tellier's, — the
old man was the Vatcl of Haramont, — and that twelve ladies
were to crown the Turenne wlio had overcome the Condu
of tlie next canton.

Pitou was too much fatigued for his stomach not to
have suffered.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 619

Pitou, being led by his sentinel to the banquet-hall, was
received with acclamations which nearly blew the roof off.

He bowed, sat down in silence, and even attacked the
veal and salad.

This state of feeling lasted until his stomach was filled
and his heart relieved.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

• Feastin«^ after sorrow is either an increase of grief or
an absolute consolation.

Pitou saw that his grief was increased.

He arose when his companions could not.

He made even an oration on Spartan sobriety to them
when they were all dead drunk.

He bid them go away when they were asleep under the
table.

We must say that the ladies disappeared during the
dessert.

Pitou thought, amid all his glory and honor, the promi-
nent subject was his last interview with Catherine.

Amid the half hints of his memory, he recalled the fact
that her hand had often touched his, and sometimes her
shoulder had pressed his own, and that he, on certain oc-
casions, had known all her beauties,

He then looked around him like a man awakening from
a drunken dream.

He asked the shadows why so much severity toward a
young woman, perfect in grace, could have been in his
heart.

Pitou wished to reinstate himself with Catherine.

But how ?

A Lovelace would have said, " That girl laughs at and
deceives me. I will follow her example."

Such a character would have said, " I will despise her,
and make her ashamed of her love as of so much disgrace.

" I will terrify and dishonor her, and make the path to
her rendezvous painful."

Pitou, like a good fellow, though heated with wine and
love, said to himself, " Some time I will make Catherine
ashamed that she did not love me."

Pitou's chaste ideas would not permit him to fancy that

(J20 TAKING THE BASTILE.

Cixthorine did aiigfht l)nt coquette witli M. dc Chariiy, and
that she hiughed at liitj hiced boots and golden ripurs.

How delighted Pitou was to think that Catherine was
not in love witli either a boot or a spur.

Some day M. Isidor would go to tlie city and marry
a countess. Catherine then would seem to him an old.
romance.

All tliese ideas occupied the mind of the commander of
the National Guard of Haramontc

To prove to Catherine that he was a good fellow, lie
began to recall all the bad things he had heard during the
day.

But Catherine had said some of them. He tho.ight he
would tell them to her.

A drunken man without a watch has no idea of time.

Pitou had no watch, aiul had not gone ten paces before
he waa as drunk as Bacchus or his son Thospis.

He did not remember that ho had left Catherine three
hours before, and that half an hour later, she must have
reached Pisseaux.

To tliat place he hurried.

Let us leave him among the trees, bushes, and briers,
threshing with his stick the great forest of Orleans, which
returned blows witli usury.

Let us return to Catherine, who went liome with her
mother.

There was a swamp beliind the farm, and when there
they had to ride in single tile.

The old lady went first.

Catherine was about to go when she heard a whistle.

She turned, and saw in the distance the caji of Isidor's
valet.

She let her mother ride on, and the latter, being but a
few paces from her home, waa not wary.

The servant came.

" Mademoiselle," said he, " my master wishes to see you
to-night, and begs you to meet him somewhere at eleven,
if you please."

" Has he met with any accident ?" said Catherine, with
much alarm.

" I do not know. He received to-night a letter with a
black seal fronr Paris. I have already been here an hour."

Tiie clock of Villers-Cottcrets struck teu.

TAKING THE BASTILE. 621

Catherine looked around.

'* Well, the place is dark ; tell your master I will wait
for him here."

The man rode away.

Catherine followed her mother home.

What could Isidor have to tell her at such an hour ?

Love meetings assume more smiling forms.

That was not the question. Isidor wished to see her,
and the hour was of no importance. She would have met
him in the graveyard of Villers-Cotterets at midnight.

She would not then even think, but kissed her mother,
and went to her room.

Her mother went to bed.

She suspected nothing, and if she had, it mattered not,
for Catherine was a being of a superior order.

Catherine neither undressed nor went to bed.

She heard the chime of half after ten. At a quarter
before eleven she put out the lamp and went into the
dining-room. The windows opened into the yard. She
sprung out.

She hurried to the appointed place, with a beating
heart, placing one hand on her bosom and the other on
her head. She was not forced to wait long.

She heard the feet of a horse.

She stepped forward.

Isidor was before her.

Without dismounting, he took her hand, lifted her into
the saddle, and said :

" Catherine, yesterday my brother George was killed at
Versailles. My brother Olivier has sent for me ; I must

go-"

Catherine uttered an exclamation of grief, and clasped

Charuy in her arms.

*' If," said she, ''they killed one brother, they will kill
another."

" Be that as it may ; my eldest brother has sent for me j
Catherine, you know I love you."

" Stay, stay !" said the poor girl, who was only aware
of the fact that Isidor was going.

" Honor and vengeance appeal to me."

*' Alas ! alas ! "

And she threw herself, pale and trembling, in his arms.

A tear fell from Charny's eyes on the young girl's brow.

622 TAKING THE BASTILE.

" You weep ; tluiiik (Jod, you love uie ! ''

"Yes ; but my eldest brother has written to me, and
you see I must obey."

"Go, then : I will keep you no longer."

"Oue last kiss."

" Adieu ! "

The young girl consented, knowing that notliing could
keep Isidor from obeying this order of his brother. She
slid from liis arms to the ground.

The young man looked away, sighed, hesitated, but
under the iulluence of the order he had received, galloped
away, casting one long last look on Catherine.

A servant followed him.

Catherine lay alone where she fell, completely closing
the narrow way.

Just then a man appeared on the top of the hill, toward
Villers-Cotterets, rapidly advancing toward the farm, and
he was very near treading on the inanimate body that lay
in tlie pathway.

He lost his balance, stumbled, and fell, and was not
aware of the body until he touched it.

'' Catherine ! " said he, " Catherine dead ? "

lie uttered a cry of such agony that he aroused the very
dogs of the farm.

" Who has killed her ?" lie sat pale, trembling, and
inert, with the body on his knees.

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